


Apocalypseses Now

by mabus101



Series: Six-Metal Superheroes [4]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed (TV), Exalted, Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-11 05:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 84,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12928491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabus101/pseuds/mabus101





	1. A Pirate's Death For Me

Under the Deathlord's gaze, Mnemon drew herself up straight. Why show weakness in the face of Creation's great enemy? Buffy and at least some of her compatriots followed suit, taking heart from her example.

"Where is Admiral Leviathan?" the Silver Prince shouted. "I at least am not ignorant that he has long ruled Mobile Platform #3. No doubt he thinks that--"

"I beat Leviathan!" Fred's voice rang out over the command interface. "So think again if you're expecting easy meat!"

"Ah," the Deathlord said, softly, knowingly. "A clever one. You managed to seize the city. No, not even the Admiral of the Deliberative could hold out long against such a weapon. You expect to defeat me in much the same way. How...straightforward a stratagem. How simple."

"Name one reason it won't work," Buffy yelled out. "You're everything I was trained to fight. If you think being the Biggest Bad around is gonna deter me, if you think it's going to stop me, think again."

"One reason?" the Silver Prince said, his tone mocking. "I know many. But let us try this one. Towers of Azure? Deliberative Command override: Daana'd Kimbery Siakal Thirty-five Arkadi Three. Towers, expel the intruders."

**Chapter 91--A Pirate's Death For Me**

"Belay that, Towers," Fred said hastily. "I'm the one attuned to the captain's chair."

Mnemon didn't waste time waiting for the outcome. "Open fire," she ordered her troops. The Vermillion Legion and her portion of the Water Fleet concentrated its fire on the Deathlord; a moment and a pair of signals later, the Luthea and the remainder of the Fleet joined in. In seconds, elemental energies of every kind coruscated around the Silver Prince in a barrage of bolts and arrows and hurled knives. Even a couple of streams each of tainted green fire and black lightning converged on him. To her dismay, the Deathlord's blade whirled in a circular motion like a fan, blocking most of the attacks while his soulsteel-plated robes swung to deflect the remainder. If he could do this for long, they might not last long enough to be driven from the city.

Indeed, the AI replied, slowly and reluctantly, "Admiral Arkadi has privileged access backed up by his command codes. I cannot simply dismiss his orders." But a brief pause followed, and then a more cheerful Towers added, "However, 96 percent of internal weaponry is disabled to my control. If you avoid Decks 37 and 38 I will be completely unable to bring it to bear." That was something, at least.

Disgruntled, the Silver Prince--Admiral Arkadi? who was that?--ordered, "Then use your external weaponry to clear the deck. Focus on the rogue Exalts," he added after a moment, still casually deflecting attacks. "The undead are accounted for."

Mnemon sighed a put-upon sigh; she had hoped to avoid vulgar display. "You heard him," she said into the air. "He wants Towers of Azure to ignore the undead. I suppose your time has come."

"And how glad I am to hear it," said a thunderous voice as Octavian, the Living Tower, the Quarter Prince, materialized at last.

*****

"Towers," Fred urged, "it's not him. It's one of Admiral Arkadi's souls, but this is a creature of darkness. Surely you're not programmed to take orders from those?"

"Orders have been relayed to me in that fashion before," Towers of Azure said stuffily. "On Deliberative date...date...14.Green.32.Red."

"That's not a valid date code," Willow pointed out. "Are you sure it happened?"

"Salina you are out of line twine design--" In the background Fred could see the Silver Prince coming to grips with a huge demon. What was he called again? Octavius? Maybe he could best the Deathlord. Hadn't he only ever been beaten by...not Princess Peach. Who was it again? The Mushroom King. Close enough.

"Towers, please try and focus. That was a Deathlord. He wants to end the world." Willow leaned forward. "You were created to protect Creation. That's your whole purpose. You can't just let him destroy it."

"That may be a valid argument," Towers agreed softly. "Nonetheless his command codes--"

"Retreat into the city," Fred ordered over the public announcement system. "Clear the main deck." She released the mike. "There. Doesn't that let you follow the letter of your orders?"

"Thank you, Queen Winifred," Towers said gratefully. "I found myself quite constrained."

"We understand," Willow agreed. "We'll try not to put you in any more binds."

*****

"It won't be enough," Shadow muttered as the mountain of grey muscle coalesced and hurled itself up the side of the looming dreadnought.

"What makes you say that?" Alexander asked her. For most purposes Shadow was Buffy; it was a bad idea to ignore her opinions on fighting demons. Or fighting in general, like right now. He slammed a pair of zombies between himself and Luthe's guns; they were vaporized, but it gave him time to evade the blast.

"He's too powerful for me to just clobber," Shadow explained. "So how would I beat him?" He'd lent her his blaster, Coffin Nailer, and now she used it to disable the big gun with a precision strike.

Alexander said thoughtfully, "You'd retreat and figure out his weakness. Maybe you'd lure him into some kind of crossfire to hurt him and get away, like a construction site or a busy highway." Great, now some kind of ghost was sizing him up. Could he even hit it?

"Crossfire: check," Shadow said, punching the ghost in the face. Okay, it was material here. "The Deathlords are thousands of years old, and ex-Solars. Wanna place a bet on the Silver Prince already knowing his weakness?"

"Crap," Alexander said by way of agreement, and drove Wavecleaver through where the ghost's guts should be. "So at best she bought us time. Maybe I can buy us some more. You heard that, right?" The ghost faded away.

"He's Admiral Arkadi's ghost?" Shadow said. "So basically he was your husband." She lifted her eyebrows before pivoting to put an energy cannon between herself and an Abyssal casting some sort of necromantic spell. "Anything you're not telling us?"

"If there is, I didn't get the memo either," Alexander said uneasily. The spell went off, releasing a dome-shaped wave of white energy that completely ignored the cannon. Crap. "Run!" Alexander took his own advice, leaping up onto the shoulders of a zombie and onto the ceiling of a low tower. The wave kept coming as Shadow hopped up after him. "But he's a ghost. He's got to have some kind of unfinished business. I mean, your boyfriends always try to destroy the world after you have sex, right?"

Shadow winced and grabbed a rope left from the wedding decorations. Untwisting it, she grabbed him and they swung off, leaving the energy behind as it peeled the flesh from zombies and some unfortunate soldiers. "Maybe I should hook up with the Roseblack. Seems to be working out for the other me."

"I wouldn't object," Alexander said helpfully. They were now a story or two above most of the battle. He kicked off against a tower and sent them spiraling back down. "Although it suddenly occurs to me, if he was an Eclipse and you're a Moonshadow--"

"How contrived would that be?" Shadow sighed as they landed atop a huge spine chain crawling from the water. "Except that I'm totally the result of some convoluted plot by the Princess Bride, who seriously does _not_ want to marry Humperdinck. If she's as smart as this guy, she's smart enough to figure out we might meet and give me his Exaltation. Jesus, I hope he's not Westley," she added as the massive grey-skinned demon lord went flying into the ocean. Crap. Usually he didn't root for demons.

"Ah, but _I_ am the Dread Pirate Roberts," Alexander pointed out. Wavecleaver severed the beast in two. Then four. Then...okay, some of the parts were out of reach now. "Wait, does that put me marrying you or the Black Roost...um, Penguin?"

" _Heron_. C'mon, Xander. Get with the program." She elbowed him in the ribs and blasted the skulls off the remaining spine bits, collapsing them. "You're already married, what...twice? Three times?"

"Surely this Arkadi guy doesn't count," he suggested. "Till death do us part and all. That does count here, right?" Shadow didn't answer him. He turned to see if she'd been hurt, but no, she was just standing there staring at...at...

Oh hell no. "ANYA!!!"

*****

Anya didn't care about being driven off Luthe. Most of the enemy weren't there. The _real_ enemy, in fact, was up on that Dreadnought's deck. The moment he appeared, she'd made her way toward the side and quietly, oh so very quietly, climbed up it.

She wasn't nearly as terrified as she'd been of Mayor Wilkins. Must be personal growth, she mused to herself. She was Anya, Chosen of Endings, Chooser of the Slain, and the Silver Prince was her target. Literally. Anya peered over the side and flattened her bow against the deck as completely as possible, four barbed broadhead arrows nocked and ready.

She fired, arrows scattering to the four winds, trailing crimson and green-black streamers in a confusing tangle. Her ancestors would have been proud; she just felt a queasy trembling in her stomach. But any one of these arrows could--

Each of them struck home, arms, back, and base of the neck. It was far better than she had any right to expect. The sickening feeling in her gut became a hard hot stone. The Silver Prince fell to one knee as green energy surged over him...and faded. One by one, he snapped the arrows off at the base. And he stood.

"Little Sidereal. How very sneaky of you. Not sneaky enough. I've heard rumors of you. The Elder from nowhere, the ancient youngster. Nearly as old as I." He held out a hand, and whirlwind force ripped her up and over the deck to go flying towards him. One gauntleted hand seized her neck. "But not so powerful as I. A creditable try. But inevitably...a failure."

Anya kneed him in the gut.

She would have preferred his groin, but the angle was all wrong. In any case, up this close she was practically inside his armored cloak, and her knee hit home amid red and golden streamers. Black fires erupted from within his helmet as his own death Essence tore through him.

Just one problem. He didn't let go. The Deathlord roared with fury and closed his gauntlet tight on her throat. "I should have known better. You've exceeded the rumors by far, little shearswoman. But my thread _cannot be cut_. Yours can."

"Admiral Arkadi!" It was the boom of a thousand thunders. "I AM THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS! Recognize this?"

Somehow Xander had entangled a decorative streamer from the party with guywires that helped secure Luthe's spires in battle or when it prepared to dive. Looping here and there, forward and back, he dodged burst after burst of Essence fire emanating from his own vessel, rising higher and higher until, Wavecleaver extended before him, he thumped onto the deck of the Silver Prince's flagship.

"Remember this? Remember me?" He brandished the blade with a useless flourish straight out of Errol Flynn's playbook. "You were Grand Admiral Arkadi. And me...I was Amyana. I was your--" Xander cleared his throat. "I was your wife."

Still choking, Anya watched, vision narrowing within a ring of black. The Silver Prince narrowed his eyes, then burst into hard, cruel laughter. "Anyone might bear that sword. But let us suppose you speak true...Amyana." He waved his own blade, deflecting a surge of green fire, and his grip on her throat eased just slightly. "You intuited the entire Usurpation from the attack on you. As did I. Do you really believe I didn't know?" He paused, then spoke in a brief falsetto. "'Didn't know what, Arkadi?' I knew, Amyana. I knew you were cuckolding me with that filthy beast of a Lunar. Maybe it was our bond that held me back, but I lost the Exaltation long ago, and the Neverborn did not restore _that_. So tell me, 'wife', where is the Beast King, the Great Whale God? Where is Leviathan?"

"He said he'd be here for the big finish," Xander growled. "Let her go."

 _No, dumbass!_ The Deathlord's gauntlet closed in on her again.

"You care for this one? Curious. I can't imagine she remembers much, nor that you were close then if she did." The Prince lifted her up high. "Watch her die. Watch!"

The dreadnought rocked, shuddered, and careened to one side. The Deathlord's grip slipped from her throat and caught only her collar. A war cry split the noise of battle, the shout, "Clepsys rising!"

The Silver Prince lifted one hand to meet the sudden eruption of a massive orca from beneath the waves, and dark fire and lightning burst out toward it. In that instant a gull swooped from the sky, plunging in an instant to the dreadnought's deck. Immense arms wrapped around the Silver Prince from behind. "Tell me truly, Arkadi. How do you _really_ feel?" The decoy orca plunged, burning, into the sea. "I am awake, Arkadi, my eyes open and my mind clearer than it has been in centuries. Can you say the same? Islebreaker!"

Windows shattered, and the massive trident that had resided atop the control throne of Luthe for a thousand years arced out through the grey seething sky, flying true for Leviathan's grasp. Anya ripped her shirt loose in time to avoid getting hit by it and dropped to the deck, breathing hard.

And as Leviathan caught the huge weapon in his massive hand, the Silver Prince's cutlass emerged from his broad back in a spray of blood.

*****

This was supposed to be a moment, Cyan Manosque mused, when the battle paused and everyone stood momentarily silent and frozen in shock. Of course it didn't work that way. The embattled Dragon-Blooded, in particular, were largely too hard-pressed to notice. Some of the Luthea did, and shouted out something crude about...blowholes, it sounded like...before remembering that whatever the Lunar's faults, the Deathlords wanted to kill them all, then annihilate reality. The zombies didn't notice, of course, or the automated defenses. Many of the mortals in the conflict were already dead, unless their ships were too far off to be easy targets.

In short, only a few of Leviathan's Celestial peers--if even that was the right word to relate them to the ancient leader--plus Mnemon and the Roseblack, marked him as he sank to his knees.

As the dreadnought listed to one side--was it holed, or simply being displaced by some vessel rising beneath it?--Leviathan coughed heavily, spitting up blood, and clawed his way back into his crushing grapple with the Silver Prince. Cyan breathed easier. The Ebon Dragon might tolerate a victory by a Deathlord and turn it to his own ends, but she herself had no interest in ruling a world blighted by death. Immortality was her goal, and she had no problem handing it out to loyal subjects if it kept them loyal. _Mastery_ over death and undeath was a worthy goal. Submission, not so much.

This was perhaps the moment for something momentous. She was no master sorceress, but the Yozis liked versatile servants, and she did have her talents. She lifted her hands and flung a ball of blue flame, so dark it was nearly black, into the water. The already-choppy water burst into raging whitecaps.

That was just the first step.

*****

Tara checked the engines again. She had already pushed them deep into the yellow region of the dial. Either Raksi had hit some basic physical limits building the troop transport, or she'd gotten bored. In any case, there was another half hour or so left to the trip, no safe way to cut it further, and indications of a massive storm front ahead. Or a major battle. Or maybe both.

"We're late for the party," Edie said petulantly. "Whatever shall we do?"

"I don't know what we're going to do if we _do_ get there in time," Tara said. "I'm still not exactly much against a Deathlord."

"You certainly cleaned Raksi's clock," Glory effused. "I thought the Exalted could do whoever that put their minds to."

"That's 'whatever'," Tara corrected, blushing faintly.

"Whatever," Glory agreed.

Tara shook her head at the raksha. "The Silver Prince isn't going to make me fall in love with him. Maybe he'd try if I met him in peacetime, but I'm sure he'd rather just kill me right now."

"He has too much power," Edie said, poking at the autopilot controls. "That's why he's evil. Only g...the g...the divine should have power."

Tara gently guided the girl's hands away. "Power isn't evil," she said. "Evil is a choice, not something you are or have. Power can be dangerous, it gives you more choices, sometimes too many. But all power is like that, not just magic." Her brows furrowed. "If only one person has power...like Raksi...that's much more dangerous than if lots of people have it. That's why I started up the school again. Knowledge is power too."

"But humans shouldn't see the future," Edie insisted.

Tara sighed. She hated quoting her father, and this was something he'd never have said to her. She'd overheard him talking to her brother. "'Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.' Th-the divine speaks to people, to get them ready for what's to come. Why not to you?"

"Because...because I'm bad," Edie said. "I don't want to be. It just comes."

Tara bit her lip. "If you feel it c-coming," she said, "say...say 'Speak to me. Your servant is listening.' And then do it, listen. Open your mind."

The little girl worried at her nails. "If you're quite certain."

"I am."

"Interesting advice," Glory said as the girl walked away. "What god do you suppose will speak to her?"

"Does it matter?" Tara asked, and redlined the engines.

Glory shrugged and walked away.

*****

A raging torrent of water crashed down atop the Black Fleet, slamming ships this way and that, crashing soulsteel war machines into the dreadnought and smashing necrotech into twitching meat.

It would've been more helpful if the allied fleet was clear, but Buffy let it go with a soft growl. The wave had been well-positioned, and the Black Fleet was taking the brunt of it. Water washed over Luthe's deck, but that was clear of everything but undead war machines by now.

She turned her attention to the dreadnought, briefly noticing Octavian raging in the water; a zombie-crewed vessel had scraped him off the hull as he climbed. Leviathan was pummeling the Silver Prince, but the Deathlord was laughing his butt off with every blow, and Leviathan was still bleeding like a stuck pig. Anya, Shadow, and Xander could see as well as she could that that was bad.

Time to do something about the matter herself. She spread black wings and leapt from the spire, diving down to skim the churning surface. "What's up, Doc Ock?" Octavian had just an instant before she seized him by the hand and began to struggle her way upward. God, the Living Tower was heavy; no surprise there. "Anybody ever tell you you should diet? I'd go with Atkins myself."

"Thank you for the lift, Summers," Octavian said with an ill grace. "Perhaps you should focus your attention on finding an updraft."

"Wouldn't need one if you lost some weight," Buffy muttered, and angled to the side. She was going to have to spiral around a few times.

"Your wish is not my command, Princess," Octavian grumbled. "For that you must contact your wife."

"Yeah, yeah, where is she? Where's the Roseblack, for that matter?" She strained to see what was happening up on the black ship.

"I can't tell you. They may have retreated into Luthe." Octavian, too, seemed anxious to see the deck, though he might just be hoping not to be dropped again.

"Crap," Buffy growled as the fight came into view. Leviathan lay on the deck, pierced by his own trident, while the Silver Prince toyed with Shadow, Xander, and Anya all at once. Cearr and Sulumor had also reached the top deck, but were ensnared by some kind of gut-beast reinforced with soulsteel wire and on the verge of being eaten. Mnemon, the Roseblack, and the Abyssal friendlies were nowhere to be seen.

Shadow caught Buffy's eye. "Could be worse," she said. "Dawn's still missing. She could be in the middle of this." She dodged sideways, angling toward Leviathan, but the Deathlord blocked her.

"You can't pick that up," Xander warned.

"Leviathan needs it out of him," Shadow protested.

"He'll make it," Xander said, but his glance at Buffy was worried. "The Silver Prince couldn't lift it either, but he managed to make Levi stab himself," he explained.

Anya glanced at Octavian, who shrugged and cursorially tugged at the trident. "Fool thing's enchanted. More trouble than it's worth, if you ask me."

"Leviathan had to go all King Arthur on Luthe," Xander said, "and he didn't even get his money's worth."

The Silver Prince finally sighed a long, bored sigh. "Take it if you can, pretty girl. It might let you last a few more minutes against me."

"Shadow," Anya warned, "nobody can pick it up but Leviathan. Or Admiral Arkadi's reincarnation, but what are the odds of--?"

Shadow closed her hand on the trident. She tugged, and it came easily free. "One," she said. "The odds are one. Nice."

Buffy thought for an instant and a half about congratulating her before the Silver Prince lunged, cutlass outstretched. Instead she threw herself in front of the attack, which sent sparks flying from her chest. "They may be small," she quipped, "but they're boobs of steel."

The Prince pulled back his daiklaive and took a step back as if considering his options. His fleet was a wreck, and his kingdom might well be next. He might not be killable, but if she sank him to the bottom of the sea in chains...

Thunder shook the clouds right on top of them, and a flying teardrop-shaped craft shot out wreathed in lightning. "Hang on," a familiar voice rang out. "We're in for some chop."

"I knew Vasquez," Buffy yelled back. "Vasquez was my friend. Tara, you're no Vasquez."

"Wrong character," Tara called back, "and anyway, let Willow be the judge of that."

Apemen began to rain from the sky.


	2. The Key and Guardian of the Gate

"I'm not jumping out of here," Glory stated flatly.

Tara just nodded. The raksha was nowhere near as powerful as she would be one day, and Tara was much more powerful than she had been. She felt caution, and that was all. "I don't expect you to." All the soldiers were out, hooting and thumping their way across decks. Tara came around for one more pass. "Hold Edie, please."

Glory made as if to protest, but the baboon-child clung to her like a vine, and finally she patted the girl's head rather than make more trouble in front of an Exalt.

Tara glanced at the still-open hatch and slammed her open palms into Glory's upper chest. With a shriek of outrage, the Glorificent One went flying out the open hatch, skidding to a stop on her rump.

Tara ignored her protests and gunned the overheated engines one last time, trusting her friends to get out of the way. Then she leapt from the nearest hatch, feet arcing high over her head before she dropped to a three-point landing on the metal deck.

Only the Silver Prince still stood in front of the onrushing transport. His gigantic sword came down and around in a precision slash through the craft's control system and fuel lines. With such power as the Exalted wielded, even a crashing rocket plane could be simply parried, with a little ingenuity--though technically, the Deathlord was no Exalt.

The transport exploded in fire and shrapnel. Sparks flew from Buffy, and Xander deflected a hunk of twisted metal with his sword. The Silver Prince....

...was hurled off the deck, robes burning, to splash down in the ocean far below. What the hell?

**Chapter 92--The Key and Guardian of the Gate**

The Silver Prince was in the water only moments before rocketing out above the waves. He leapt from ship to ship, pausing no more than a moment in the rigging of each. "What just happened?" Tara asked. "I thought he was invulnerable, or just about."

"No invulnerability is perfect," Leviathan said weakly, on one elbow on the deck, "as I clearly demonstrate. When Admiral Arkadi lived, he could deflect blows in that fashion only in the presence of those he cared for. I surmise that he is vulnerable in their presence now."

"Clearly he's no fan of mine," Xander muttered. Leviathan reached up with one huge arm to give him a comforting pat on the back. "Who does a Deathlord care about?"

"It's me," Shadow guessed. "I've got his Exaltation. I'm him...sort of."

"Normally such self-concern is ineffective," Leviathan murmured as lightning crackled on the deck, disgorging Willow and Fred, who raced over to Tara, and Mnemon and the Roseblack, who put as much distance between each other as they could. "But perhaps you're right--you are truly him and not him both at once."

"It's like a form of sympathetic magic," Tara suggested. "There has to be a weakness of some kind. By being him but not him, Shadow provides it." Willow ruffled her hair with a grin. "If there was anyone else he loved, it might not work."

"There's only one way to test a hypothesis like that," Fred said, pointing to the unnaturally-bounding Deathlord coming toward them. "Hit him again."

"Not difficult," the Roseblack said, and lifted a hand.

"Wait till you see the whites of his eyes," Cearr quipped. "No, seriously--be sure Shadow counts as present before you attack."

"I thought you were staying, sweetie," Willow said, comcerned.

"I found a way to keep order while I'm gone." _I hope,_ she added to herself. Even if there were really no ordinary criminals that the elders couldn't handle, there might be a pro-Raksi faction still around. "Hopefully I'll come back to a working school."

A green bolt of twirling vines caught the Silver Prince in the chest but left him unhurt. "He's very heavily armored," Mnemon said, "but he didn't even try to deflect that. Heavy weapons will take him down."

"We need something with more punch," Anya grumbled.

"I'm not sure what else I've got," Tara admitted. "That was just a transport or I wouldn't have wrecked it." Now that she thought about it, Raksi had taught her very little she could actually use to _fight_. Well, she hadn't been completely helpless before coming here, or Sunnydale would have killed her. And she _had_ learned a few things from the library. "Hold on," she said thoughtfully. "Let me see--"

The Silver Prince came thundering across the deck, and Leviathan made a signal. The Dreadnought tipped up further and began to slide rapidly to the stern. The Deathlord, undeterred, raised his blade to swing at Leviathan's head. The cutlass struck only the tines of Islebreaker, but Shadow stumbled under the massive force of the Silver Prince's blow and began to slip downward.

Tara braced herself as the deck slanted further and another ship began to rise from underneath. She began to chant a complex prayer. The Silver Prince eyed her warily but was quickly drawn into a series of rapid parries as Islebreaker, Wavecleaver, the Scythe, and a huge axe wielded by Cearr all came at him at once.

A hatch opened in the rising vessel and people began clambering out, huge eyes shielded from the sun. Men and women alike were pale as vampires, but they didn't catch fire. Instead they donned goggles and began firing harpoon guns at the nearest clusters of zombies. When they struck, the harpoons lit up with pale-green fire or swirled with biting dust or bloody mist. What were these people?

The Silver Prince still had had no chance to focus on Tara as she finished the prayer and shaped her hands into a gesture, a mudra. A writhing serpent flared around her in silver, and red streamers shot from her toward the stern and dove into the sea. Now the Deathlord found a moment to try and counterspell her, but Buffy drove the stake end of the Scythe through a gap where his robes had burned away. He didn't drop, but he groaned in pain and ruined the word of power. The sea began to thrash and boil again.

An unexpected gout of dessicating salt burst around the Silver Prince as Sulumor clambered back aboard. Her outfit was soaked in water, and she was cursing like...a sailor, Tara thought, suppressing a giggle. Her own apefolk soldiers weren't much happier; some of them couldn't swim at all, and the rest hated to.

She had just about concluded that the sea floor was too far down when the sea began to boil. Then a nest of tentacles burst from the water, glowing dull red, and arced in the direction of the Silver Prince.

"Tara," Willow said uneasily as most of the tentacles lashed at the Deathlord, "that's...that's not what I thought you meant by 'I'm not sure what else I've got.'"

Tara wondered why she had largely avoided throwing lightning at the Prince, then dismissed it. "It takes a little while, it's draining, and I wasn't sure it'd work this far out at sea." She made one of the tentacles try to wrap around the Deathlord, but he sliced it in two. The stump immediately regenerated, though. The draining effect was strange. She could tell how much of her capacity she'd used up, but rather than tired, she felt energized, but ravenous--pretty much as Faith had indicated way back when. It was a deep, visceral sensation; having Willow and Fred this close was distracting.

"You're hard to see," Fred indicated. "That anima-light hides you like smoke."

"I wonder," Tara mused, "if the energy we use isn't so much a power source as a...containment field for these auras." It was a complicated idea, one that might not have occurred to her before she Exalted, but it came easily now. The natural human inclination was to think the energy was intended as the Swiss-army tool Exalts used it for, but why did the aura powers manifest when you were low on energy instead of charged?

One of the tentacles finally managed to wrap itself around the Deathlord's leg. Tara tried to make it lift him into the air, but he stood stubbornly fixed in place. The magma actually seemed to hurt him, though, which from the expression on Buffy's face was very nearly a first. "Maybe I _should_ learn some spells," she muttered.

"I'll teach you," Tara said happily. She hadn't exactly been displeased when Buffy had learned that meditation-spell earlier this year; teaching her more, now, sounded like a great time.

"Best investment you'll ever make," Cyan agreed with an impish smirk. When had she gotten here? Well, this was pretty plainly where the action was. Even the Abyssal circle she'd spotted on approach seemed to have been overwhelmed by the huge number of Dragon-Blooded in this fight.

Tara slashed all the magma tentacles at the Silver Prince at once. With a curse, he put on a burst of speed...straight for her. The tentacles missed, and the Deathlord slammed into her like a semi truck. The breath went out of her in an instant, and though the huge blade he wielded didn't strike her, razor-sharp shards of soulsteel pierced her sides and sliced into her face.

"Get off her! Get off her _now_!" Tara opened her mouth to warn Willow that she could take it, she was ok, but the sight shocked words from her. Willow was levitating three feet above the deck, black lightning crackling between the symbols that orbited her body. Without so much as a twitch of her fingers, the lightning shot from her eyes in an endless cascade, somehow grounding itself in the Silver Prince without touching Tara. Not even the Deathlord's armor seemed capable of lending him full protection from Willow's fury.

"Very well," he murmured, and flung his blade at her. It arced through the air, tumbling, passing through the electrical torrent unscathed. Shadow and Buffy both dove for it, but interfered with each other so that it slid through their fingers and clove Willow in two between the ribs and pelvis. Black blood poured from the wound and from her mouth as her torso slid backwards, and the lightning ceased.

Then Willow's mouth twisted into a smile. She reached down and adjusted the position of her chest atop her abdomen. The bleeding stopped. "Fooled ya," Willow sang out. Her eyes crackled violently, but the lightning failed to resume. She was staring at a spot between Buffy and Shadow, just in front of her, where their mingled blood had fallen from their slashed palms onto the deck.

That blood was shimmering with lightning all its own.

Buffy looked up at the Silver Prince. "Huh. Summers blood. Imagine that."

Shadow mirrored her gaze. "Looks like you just made the biggest mistake of your unlife."

The shining droplet grew, keeping its oval shape, surging, searing, becoming a rift in Creation. Through the rift rose Dawn Summers...but not Dawn Summers. Her forehead bore lumps and corrugations; her mouth was a maw of fangs. "Prophethy jutht ithn't prophethy if it doethn't come true," she growled.

And the portal erupted with vampires. All the people of Sunnydale--Buffy and Willow and Xander and Riley and Graham and Walsh and Giles and Tara and Snyder and.... An endless torrent of them, surging from the rift that had been torn open by one simple, unanticipated error.

Tara could sense that they weren't really vampires, that this was an identity they had taken on to exploit the properties of the Shadowland they were in. To the Deathlord, it hardly mattered. He raised a hand, and energy like ice radiated from it, chilling and killing the first of the onrushing throng so that they fell to dust. It wasn't enough to stop the mob, forced out under pressure from the endless horde behind them.

Dawn stood there, floating above the portal, untouched by the deathly cold. "I know the gate," she said. "I am the gate. I am the key and guardian of the gate. You know me, ghotht of Admiral Arkadi. I wath the Thought of Ea Gtho." The Silver Prince responded to that name in a way Tara hadn't been sure Deathlords were capable of: he flinched. "The Balorian Cruthade thayth hi."

"You're fools," the Deathlord grated. "You don't realize what you've unleashed."

"Looks to this glamour girl like you unleashed it yourself," said Glory from the sidelines. "You made the cuts, you opened the side doors. Always a few extra doors to any chancel."

"A breakthrough?" The Silver Prince ignored the raksha pinioning his arms. "You really did it? You blind fools. You've destroyed the world yourselves, and not even the peace of the void to show for it."

"Take him through," Dawn intoned. "Give him to the Craven Emperor. Feed him to the Wyld. Let the Neverborn return him from _that_. If they can."

The Deathlord struggled against the horde of fae for a few more moments. Then, with a feeble sigh of futility, he went limp as the faux-vampires shoved him through the doorway.

"Aw," said Shadow. "I was hoping for a good one-liner. 'Death is only the beginning' or maybe 'Death is but a door'--"

"'Time is but a window,'" Buffy added.

"'I'll be back,'" Xander said in pure Schwarzenegger.

"No hurting humanth," Dawn said belatedly. "Hi folkth. Buffy. Buffy. Willow, Xander, Tara, everyone. Wondering when you were going to let me out, but I wathn't thuppothed to tell. Bad thtorytelling and all that. Bleagh, it'th hard to talk through thethe."

"It's okay," Shadow said, "I think. And trutht me, I underthtand."

"Tara," Willow and Fred said with one voice. Fred reached down and prodded the wounds. "You should get to the infirmary," she added. "This could be serious."

Tara shook her head and sat up. "I'm hurt," she said, "but not as badly as I look." Deep in her body, redundant organs were bypassing damage and enhanced blood cells were repairing it. "Lunars are like that. You should know." After a moment, Fred nodded. "Exalts are like that," she said to Willow, who touched her stomach and tried to look embarrassed. 

"Visitors," Cearr called out. A moment later, a grizzled pirate captain came over the side, Moray Darktide in tow. Two more enemy Abyssals followed, and then Son of Crows and Meticulous Owl.

"Two dead," Son of Crows reported, "and Swims-in-Shadow escaped. This one is a friendly."

The pirate captain nodded. "I am Fallen Wolf of the Cutting Seas. Until today, the Silver Prince has been my ultimate prey. But I have been in the far Southeast fighting monsters and trying to gain allies from the Tengese. When I heard that you were pursuing his fleet, I set out to join you, but couldn't catch up to you."

"I'm sorry about that," Fred said calmly. "We were setting a punishing pace trying to catch his fleet."

"Have you given any thought to what should be done with the Isles, here?" The Wolf gestured out over the ocean. "The Silver Prince ruled here openly, as a god-king. Without him--"

"Chaos," Tara sighed. "We know."

"At first," Fred said, "I thought we'd just claim it for the Alliance. But I'm building up a lot of people to personally rule, even in the West. After today....Shadow? Are you up for this?" She glanced back at the pirate. "Unconquerable Shadow is a Moonshadow caste and, we just found out today, the incarnation of the Solar the Silver Prince used to be."

The pirate whistled. "I see the use of that. Shadow? What say you? This seems the first you've heard of this plan, but if a Moonshadow can't govern, who can?"

"Buffy sure stepped right in," Shadow began, pointing at the other her. "I'm willing to give it a go."

"Then let me ask," the Fallen Wolf said, "may I have the run of your territory? I believe that if I can destroy the Monstrance in which he held my Exaltation, I could become a Solar once more. But he hid such things carefully, even from me."

Fred nodded slowly, and Shadow immediately said, "If that's what you want, no prob, but...you need to know the score. Somebody's staying here--me, looks like--to keep Skullstone from festering till we gotta pop it, but I'm the only one. We have to boogie before the Mask of Winters makes Lookshy his personal cemetery."

The Fallen Wolf stared at her for a moment. "You know this from halfway across the world? And you plan to return in time to stop it?"

Buffy raised her hand. "I know it because I'm there. And we're going to take a shortcut through hell to get there in time, on my nickel."

"A worthy cause," the Fallen Wolf mused, "weighed against my redemption." With a sigh, he concluded, "Let it be so. I will violate the boundaries of Malfeas to stop another Deathlord, even if it leaves me in this state for all time. Why are you rolling your eyes? I--"

The Abyssal broke off as his caste mark burst out black on his forehead. Bloody tar poured from it for a moment; then, as if some barrier had been pierced, orange-golden light erupted from it, and a rumbling explosion sounded in the distance. A wolf erupted from the outpouring of radiance, and though only its eyes gleamed yellow from its grizzled fur, its body fleshed out and grew muscular again as it howled in triumph. Awe shone in the pirate's eyes as the ravages of age faded, his skin growing smooth and his hair turning glossy black. "I...I am...Jalyn Korfos once more. What magic is this?"

Buffy shrugged. "Figured you knew this story, but I guess not. This was your final sacrifice--you gave up redemption to save the world again, and got it back. I saw it coming a mile away."

Jalyn Korfos laughed aloud. "Well, I certainly did not! Perhaps I am a fool, but now I can gladly join this errand of yours, and the Mask of Winters will feel the blade the Silver Prince escaped!"

*****

It took several hours to weed out the remaining "live" zombies and destroy the collapsed corpses--most had perished when the Silver Prince had vanished into the Wyld, but some had been the creations of surviving Abyssals. Unconquerable Shadow studied the controls of the dreadnought and concluded she could pilot it back to Onyx, but most of the Black Fleet would have to be taken into Luthe's drydocks or scuttled.

"I can only wish you well," Jalyn told her, "and hope that you too can find the Sun's light again."

Shadow shrugged uneasily. "I was never a Solar," she pointed out, "and a few months ago I was created as a copy of an Infernal. Not to be morbid about it, but I'm not sure the Sun gives two cents about me."

"The Sun cares not for your origins," Jalyn told her, "and from the tales I've been regaled with already, you and your original are a hero...pardon, are heroes...beyond ready compare. I think that if you seek it, cleansing will be yours, in time."

"I hope so," Shadow agreed. "But I hope I've got the Archipelago under control by then. I plan to present myself as the Silver Prince reincarnated again--after all, I kinda am--and do for real what he lied about: make peace between the living and the dead. Easy reincarnation, ancestors getting along with their descendants, that kind of thing. Not too sure about the zombie labor force." She tugged uneasily at her hair. "And not sure what to do with all this soulsteel. I mean, talk about your atrocities."

"Once," Jalyn said, "in the First Age, soulsteel was forged only from the worst of criminals, those deemed too monstrous to deserve new life. I must wonder if even that would be possible in a truly whole Creation, but never have I heard that soulsteel could be unmade."

Shadow set her hand to the tiller. "We're Exalted, right? The difficult we do today; the impossible takes a little while longer."

Jalyn smiled. "Never lose that optimism. Your title must have been given in mockery, but I deem you truly unconquerable, if you hold to that faith in yourself."

"So I can do anything," Shadow said with a wry grin, "if only I believe."

The pirate looked confused. "Is that an odd thing to say?"

"Nope. Not in the least. That's what's wrong with it."

*****

Octavian sat across from Buffy and looked her in the eye. Even Luthe's adaptive furniture found his bulk difficult to handle. "You think this plan will please the Yozis?"

"Hard to see how it could tick 'em off," Buffy said. "They don't want the Neverborn eating the world any more than we do."

"This procedure is acceptable," the Quarter Prince said in a tone radically unlike himself, cold, calculating, and yet entirely suffused with menace. "The Neverborn and their aberrations must be purged even at great cost. Nonetheless the unit Buffy Summers is not functioning acceptably."

"Um...excuse me? Octavian? You sound like the Borg?"

"I sound like myself, Slayer unit Buffy Summers. I live within my name and am contained within myself. Though Kimbery is frequently irrational, she has genuine concerns about your failure to properly lead the Southern front of the Reclamation. Besides the Mask of Winters' rampage, the Perfect of Paragon has gone off-program."

Wait...oh crap. "You're her? I mean, you're she--?"

"You are speaking to a downloaded aspect of myself within one of my souls, yes. All of us have been trying to locate you to inform you of Kimbery's and our displeasure. If you do not repair matters quickly your clearance will be lowered and your resources revoked."

"I'm on my way," Buffy protested. "I swear."

"See that you do not worsen matters. Further deviations from program will not be tolerated." Octavian's face went slack for a moment. "Aw, hell. Not her. I ain't exactly the oversoul's biggest fan. Bad news?"

"Apparently the Yozis are pissy enough at me that She Who Rents Words for Real Estate Purposes possessed you just to inform me how bad I'm doing." Buffy dug the heels of her hands into her forehead. "I feel gross now."

"Imagine how I feel." Octavian mimicked the gesture. "Is this supposed to make it feel better? Because I'm not getting anything."

Buffy shook her head. "Not really, it's just kind of a distraction." Couldn't very well kill Mnemon. She needed another outlet. Monologuing...not to Octavian, though, that was bad. He might have a complicated relationship with his Yozi, but he wouldn't hesitate to report disloyalty. "I've got to do a better job micromanaging things or I'm in big trouble."

"Well, crap," the Quarter Prince said. "And here I was thinking I liked your management style."

*****

"Ready," Sulumor said. "Set a course North-Northwest 6 degrees i plus 3 minutes. I know the system will balk. Do it anyway."

Fred brought the ship around. Immediately the instruments registered the change in salinity as the water altered from life-bearing sea to salt-choked backwater.

"You are now entering Cecelyne," Sulumor intoned.


	3. You Are the Resistance

Colonel Jack O'Neill couldn't imagine a worse nightmare than this for an American soldier. Lying prostrate in the Potomac mud, he was emptying his magazines at a foreign threat that had breached the capital itself, with the President of the United States in mortal danger. The enemy he was fighting wasn't even human, and had come out of what damn sure looked like a spacecraft even though the movie version was supposed to be manmade, at least.

A white flash filled his vision for a moment, and when it faded the top of the Washington monument was just...gone. That was...did the enemy even realize what they were doing? Because if they did, there was _no_ military purpose to such a strike; it was intended purely to terrorize civilians.

O'Neill signaled his team to move forward. Somewhere in this mess President Morgan was--he hoped--still alive and waiting for evac. Her election might've been unusual, but she had his entire respect; every decision she made, so far as he could tell, was geared perfectly to benefit the country economically, militarily, or diplomatically. Often all three, though he realized they were sometimes at odds. Unless this was somehow her fault, he had yet to see a single bona fide mistake on her part.

"Colonel!" O'Neill dashed over to see what Kawalski had found. The soldiers lying on the ground were twitching, some sort of metallic growths spreading through their flesh.

"Don't touch," he warned. "No telling what's happening to them."

"Are they even still alive?" Kawalski wondered.

Before O'Neill could answer him, a bar of golden light pierced the smoke-filled darkness, severing the head of the nearest fallen soldier. A bulky form loomed out of the shadows, and O'Neill raised his rifle. "Stop it! I can save these people!"

"Many have said that," the stranger said. "I believe you no more than I did them."

"Who the hell are you?" O'Neill demanded

"I am called the Groosalugg, the brave and undefeated," said the barely-clad figure, with a wry tone in his voice, "and _I am the Dawn_."

**Chapter 93--You Are the Resistance**

"If you kill any more of those people," O'Neill began, but then one of the downed soldiers opened his mouth and let out an eerie, inhuman moan like modem noise. "Change of plans," O'Neill said. "Those aren't our men anymore." He holstered his rifle, pulled out his service pistol, and shot that one in the head as it reached blindly for his leg. "Well? Put them out of their misery."

While the team disposed of the cyberzombies-in-waiting, O'Neill scanned the battlefield. "We're trying to get to President Morgan," he said. "We think she's behind cover with a small honor guard. Have you seen her?"

"There was a woman with some soldiers behind that metal wheeled thing," the Groosalugg said, pointing to a van. "They seemed as safe as possible here, so I passed them by. That was moments ago."

"You heard him," O'Neill said. "Move, move!" The team hustled. Too late. By the time they got around the van, two of the robot skeletons were firing on the soldiers and Secret Service agents surrounding the President.

O'Neill signaled the unit to open fire, then crouched low and circled quickly behind the burning wreckage that had once been another car. He came up behind the Terminator--was he really, seriously fighting a Terminator?--and slashed through the upper hydraulic lines in the rear torso. Steam and oil gushed out, and the mechanical monster collapsed. The other turned to face him, only to go down under sustained fire. "Madam President! Are you okay in there?"

A thumbs-up sign rose from the cluster of bodies. "I'm all right, Colonel. Where's my evac?"

"Marine One's waiting for you about twenty yards away, but there's heavy enemy fire. We're gonna have to zig and zag to get you there in one piece."

"Colonel! Marine One's been occupied!" A young blonde officer emerged from the smoke--Carter, her uniform said--with blood on her face.

"Crap! Well, let's go de-occupy it. And then _we'll_ occupy it back."

Carter edged closer even as she nodded. And then, in a flash, her arm shot out, thinning impossibly into a silver spear that cut through soldiers and bodyguards to stab into the President's chest. Only, that wasn't precisely what happened either. O'Neill couldn't see clearly what did happen with all the bodies in the way, but it looked as if the part of the President's body that should've been stabbed just...vanished. And afterwards she didn't bleed like everyone else. That was impossible--except it wasn't. Because she might be another alien robot, or maybe one of the superhumans who'd been popping up for months. Or hell, maybe they were the same thing.

Focus. Carter...or this weird replica of Carter...had just killed or wounded good servicemen. Odds were, she was the bad guy here. O'Neill raised his rifle and fired at her, producing silvery entry...wounds? The holes immediately began to close up.

The strange man in the loincloth with the golden sword lunged forward. O'Neill was inclined to let this Groo guy get himself killed. He didn't stand a chance against replica-Carter, and he was one hell of a wild card. But the golden sword clove straight through the creature's arm and sliced it off. A new limb leapt from the mass and stabbed Groo in the chest, but he just kept going.

The hell with it. "Madam President, chopper, now!" It killed him to leave behind wounded men, but in this circumstance, the POTUS had to take priority. He'd come back for them.

Not only was Marine One not held by the enemy, a wounded Captain Carter was in the pilot's seat, guarded by three Marines. "Carter! Can you fly this thing?"

"Wouldn't be in the seat if I couldn't, sir! Get strapped in!"

He turned to get the President strapped in first, of course, but she was already buckled. As he fastened his own belts and the copter lifted off, he heard Carter gasp. "Okay up--?"

Then he saw what she was seeing: near the Reflecting Pool, a great blue maw had opened in mid-air. "It looks like an Einstein-Rosen bridge," Carter said.

"A wormhole?"

"Colloquially, yes!" Carter glanced back at him. "That craft must just have been some sort of beachhead device. Now they're--oh, shit!"

A metallic monstrosity--maybe twenty feet high--lumbered through the wormhole, humanoid head swiveling back and forth before fixing its gaze on Marine One. "Punch it, Carter! That thing's--"

The giant robot raised an arm, and missiles shot from its palm. Carter slammed on the gas, and the missiles passed behind them and were taken out by a Marine on the machine guns.

"Aren't Terminators and Borg bad enough? Have we got to fight Decepticons too?" One of the Marines grunted in response. To O'Neill's relief, a battle group of F-22s came streaking in to strafe the mecha. Then the realization hit: they were having to conduct air strikes on American soil. Compared to this, Pearl Harbor was like Jerry Ford taking a header off the steps. "This looks like a job for Superman. Hello? I _said_ , this looks like a job for Superman! Batman? Aquaman? Anybody?"

"Colonel," Carter said, breaking into his thoughts, "I only know one person with the physics and linguistics expertise to crack this one for us."

"Linguistics?" O'Neill realized he'd missed something.

"They were chanting, sir. I'm not sure how, but they opened that gateway with their words. Maybe it was a command code, or....I don't know, sir."

"All right. I'll bite, Captain. Who is it?"

"My old graduate advisor. Oliver Seidel."

*****

Daniel Jackson put his hands over his face and stumbled through the portal.

He was in what looked like a factory, except it receded all the way to the vanishing point with no people in sight, only automated machines and exposed pipes and wires inside the ceiling framework. He started to take another step forward, then realized that would take him over the low railing of the catwalk he was on. No floor was visible below.

"Next time I get a speaking engagement, I'll be sure I can read the names," he muttered. The Great Gg'frhu'llts Society had applauded his theories abour the alien presence in human society, then attempted to sacrifice him to their deity. In desperation, he'd tried one of the incantations he'd transliterated from their ancient Sumerian texts, and...poof, here he was. "But where is here?"

"You should not be here," a voice intoned. Daniel turned to find a figure striding toward him along the catwalk, all clad in armor with a serpentine head. "You are trespassing in Estasian territory. The penalty for trespassing is death."

"I'm sorry, I had no idea...." The portal had already vanished. How could he convince this being not to kill him?

"Fortunately for you, I am also trespassing." The helmet slid down to reveal a deep-brown face with a yellow diamond-cut gemstone set in the forehead. "Be glad you are not also in a Blight Zone. The Blight is spreading ever faster."

"O-okay. I'm Daniel Jackson. I'm from Earth. Who are you?"

"I am Thoughtful Executor of Adamant Legality for Calar. I am from the nation of Jarish. The sickness afflicting Autochthon's champions is spreading slowest there. Are you here, as I am, to try and stop the invasion?" Executor looked down his nose skeptically as he said that.

"I'm sorry, what invasion?"

"The Apostates--the infected champions--have begun their long-planned invasion of Earth. We had dismissed the possibility because of their low numbers, but the sickness of the Machine God has entered some new, virulent phase."

"Wait, you're invading Earth?" Daniel seized Executor by the shoulders and was shaken off. "Where? Why? Can I get back to warn them?"

"'We' are not invading Earth," Executor said impatiently. "But many of the Eighty Nations are, and Estasia has begun it by attacking your 'Washingtondeecee'. I hope Washingtondeecee is a great champion of your world, Daniel Jackson. She will need all her might to repel Estasia's Militat."

"I have to get back." Daniel struggled to convey the urgency to the Executor, whose stoic expression had barely changed. "Can you come back with me, bring intelligence on this invasion? We need your help!"

Executor's face softened just a bit--or had he imagined it? "I will be abandoning my mission to warn your people, Daniel Jackson. Do not disappoint me."

*****

"No! Damn it, no!" Samanatha Carter barely restrained herself from putting her cast through the TV screen. She was supposed to be there, damn it! But at the last moment she'd broken her arm in a motorcycle accident and been scratched from the honor guard.

A small irritable part of her just wanted to serve in an actual combat capacity. Deep space radar telemetry was fascinating science and a good way of getting on board a space mission one day, but physically, it was horrifically boring. But mostly, she desperately wanted to be in Washington making a difference in the catastrophe unfolding.

"We've just received word that the President is safe and being taken to a secure location," the talking head on the screen stated. Carter breathed a little easier. That much was good news. She stood and began to pace, though. What could she do?

Someone knocked at the apartment door, a slow, intermittent thump. "Coming!" she shouted, and made her way over, taking care not to bang her arm on anything.

On the other side was a large man, a sandy-haired...priest? Certainly a clergyman of some sort. Sam's religious beliefs were...vague at best. "I'm sorry, sir, but who are you looking for?"

"I was told to find a...Captain Samantha Carter," the man said confidently. "I'm Father Caleb, and I think you must be her." He began to shoulder his way inside.

"I'm sorry, but I didn't ask for a priest, and--" Carter set herself against the door and pushed with her legs; he was incredibly strong. "--I don't want you here."

Caleb shrugged and shoved; the door burst from its hinges and slammed her to the floor, sending a jolt of pain through her wounded arm. "Well, truth be told, I don't much care, nor have to, what you want."

He knelt down atop the heavy door and pulled out a rag and bottle. "She told me to kill you, you know, just as I'd like to. Wants to see if you'll serve her. But, the thing is, I'm not actually inclined to give you the chance."

"Who?" Carter grunted, trying surreptitiously to reach her revolver.

"Calls herself Jasmine. Mind, she's not actually so much a 'her' as an 'it', though I confess to wondering sometimes what it is she likes about the feminine form and all its wiles." He opened the bottle and wet the cloth, a strong chemical odor wafting to her nose. "I figure that the best thing for it is to leave you where no one can get to you: between life and death."

As he jammed the cloth against her face, Carter managed to get ahold of her gun. She fired straight through the door at him until the chamber emptied. Chest torn open with gunshot wounds, Caleb quirked an eyebrow and laughed.

Then the darkness swallowed her.

*****

"The idea of me having some kind of destiny is laughable," Piper said. "I'm a glorified fry cook."

Faith nodded. "I'm a runaway. Buffy was a cheerleader. Ya can't think like that." She pointe at the table. "Blow it up."

Piper hesitated. "It's a perfectly good table."

"House gets torn down tomorrow." She turned and faced Piper down. "You aren't even just destined any more. You're a bona fide Daybreak-caste Abyssal Exalt. Hell, Harmony had more self-confidence than you, an' less reason for it."

"My greatest talent is _cooking_."

"No rule says Exalted can't cook. Now blow the table up."

Piper sighed and waved her hands at the table, which didn't so much blow to pieces as come apart in burning cracks. Some of the fragments did sort of explode, but not with any shrapnel or anything. Faith watched it go. "Work on people?" Piper gave her the stinkeye, so Faith took a swing at her. As she'd hoped, Piper tried to blow her up. Nothing happened, so Faith pulled the punch. Two things happened.

First, the punch slowed to a halt about half an inch from Piper's nose. It didn't feel like she'd struck anything; she just didn't go any further.

Second, Piper hit back. She punched Faith right in the left boob, which was in no way a legit place to hit someone in casual sparring. It hurt even more than that should've, though, as if she'd cracked a rib. All of Faith's wind escaped, and immediately Piper went all concerned, which was not the best of things to do because now Faith was a little pissed.

Faith put an elbow in Piper's gut and cracked their skulls together hard enough to make herself see stars. That ought to put the newbie down for the count, right? But Piper shrugged it off and kicked her in the thigh. Not only was it gonna leave a nasty bruise, when Faith struck back, Piper slid aside like a shifting shadow.

From the doorway, someone began a slow clap. "How very athletic of you. How extraordinarily impressive."

Piper's head shot around even faster than Faith's. A woman was standing there, her posture rigid. For a second, Faith thought she might be a Lunar, but besides the silver filigree tracings on her skin, the rest of her body was yellow-white.

"She will never amount to anything...Faith, she called you? I have been out of the loop a long, long time. But they tell me my waste-of-space daughter has somehow gotten an Exaltation."

Faith glared daggers. "You're _supposed_ to be dead, Cathy."

"Many things are supposed to be," the statue-woman said. "But no, I was merely tortured in hell, until hell found another use for me." A ball of green light began to grow in her hands, bubbling like water coming to a boil. "I always believed children should give way to their mothers. Now mine will have to, once I dispose of her corruptors." The ball vanished into her hands, covering them in spidery green sigils.

Catherine lunged at Faith, and Piper's hands shot up. Instead of an explosion, a bubble of chill air expanded from them. Catherine's hands touched Faith and...nothing happened. The markings on her hands remained, and she stared at them for a few moments. 

Faith decked her.

"Easier than I expected," Faith muttered, turning away. "Buffy always played up this bitch like she was something horrible. Amy was terrified of her. But one good punch and--" A pair of hard blows struck her in the kidneys, wrapping garish red and green pigment around her stomach for a moment as poison seeped into her skin. Her stomach wrenched.

"One good punch, you say," Catherine Madison sneered. "Guess that goes for us both, then."

*****

Samantha Finn opened fire, literally: the bullets from her P90 burst into flame as they shot through the air. For all the good it did. They weren't hot enough to melt Terminator metal, apparently. They did set some of the older, rottener zomBorg on fire. "Just so you know, Riley, this is a lousy time to be perpetually nauseous!"

Riley's rounds were showing more effect against the skelebots, with enough stopping power to knock them to the ground, but they still weren't doing a huge amount of damage. "Did you prefer perpetually horny?"

"At least that was fun!" She took a running leap and bounded off the side of a four-story building, firing as she went, scattering the walking cyberdead.

"For the first three days," Riley agreed. This whole section of town was a wreck; he couldn't do it any further harm. He stamped his foot against the street, and the asphalt rippled and tore as a wall of earth rose to block off the main road. Bolts of plasma fire--or something--melted the asphalt into a puddle of black tar, but that only further impeded the enemy troops. "All we're doing is slowing them down. Are you sure you want me to do this? Past experience says we're going to end up somewhere way out of the way and have to hunt our friends down."

"Doesn't have to be our friends as long as they're willing to help. Most Exalted, if I understood Faith right, will jump at the chance to fight monsters unless they think we're there to attack them." She had the notion that if she jumped just right, she could go up and not come down, but this wasn't the time for flying off somewhere. "Do it. If we lose Washington, it won't be for two people leaving. Not even the two of us."

"In that case, let's hope the universe understands a Midwest accent." Riley spoke, and the universe rippled open. "Huh. It really worked. Okay then, here goes nothing."

She grabbed his hand and, together, they leapt through the portal.

This wasn't wilderness. It didn't look alien. It was a town of brick and rock cut into the insides of a crater, and it was full of people.

Most of them were screaming as they ran.

*****

"That text is mined out," Five Days' Darkness said disapprovingly.

"Says you," Harmony said, and stuck out her tongue. "You're not reasoning it out. Nobody in ages has been able to use the Labyrinth Circle, let alone the Void Circle. There's nothing wrong with the principles; there was something wrong with the caster."

"Your response to the world being under attack is to study? You've changed." In spite of his irritation, he seemed proud of her, almost indulgent.

"Not as much as you think," she said. "But look at the news. Look at those giant robots they're bringing through. We have to be able to fight them on the same scale."

"Warstriders?" Five seemed alarmed, now. "You want to reinvent warstriders?"

Harmony shrugged. "Yuh-huh. Why not?" She pointed at the book. "I haven't learned the easy version, but you don't seem to need it. I'm _so_ going to kick butt!"

Five put all his hands to his face and groaned.


	4. Separation of Powers

"Madam President," Jack O'Neill said, "we know. I saw you avoid Replicarter's stabby thing. You're one of the superhumans."

Lilah Morgan looked him in the eye. "I am. Is that a problem?"

"Did you mind-control millions of people into voting for you?" Of course, if she had, she could mind-control him and end this right here. 

"If I could do that, I wouldn't need to." Okay, fair point. "If I could do that, you wouldn't get to ask."

"So that's a no. Did you collude with alien invaders? Because that'd be treason, y'know."

"I did not. But that does require a little more explanation, doesn't it? I set up negotiations with the Pylean government a good long while before their craft was detected. These things...well, they're not the Pyleans. I'm not sure what they are."

O'Neill weighed that. It didn't seem totally unreasonable. Who knew what enemies the Pyleans had, or that Earth could have made just by existing? And not everything could go public right away. "Wait. Did you mind-control Joe Biden?"

Lilah shook her head firmly. "I did not. Whatever issues he has are his own. But you're asking the right questions. You _should_ be suspicious of me."

"And I'll stay that way a while longer. But you've answered the big ones. Right now, Madam President, you've got me on your side." Ms. Morgan grinned at him, almost impishly, an expression she was wise enough never to show the cameras. He glanced out the window. "Time to change planes."

**Chapter 94--Separation of Powers**

The changeover to a longer-range craft was quick and efficient, with no new attacks or other holdups. He did notice blood on Carter's mouth, but she explained convincingly that she'd bitten her tongue during a tense escape. Only in the movies were there no such things as mouth wounds.

She joined them in passenger seating aboard Air Force One. "So if you're superpowered, why not join in the fighting?" she asked the POTUS.

"Frankly, I'm not much of a physical threat to alien robot monsters," Lilah explained. "But more importantly, if I put myself in actual danger, I'd be betraying the voters' trust. I'm sure you understand."

Jack nodded. "Most generals can still fight, but you don't throw them into combat. What powers _do_ you have?"

"That's actually a very complicated question," the President said. "The Exaltation cores are the product of weapons technology created by some very ancient alien beings. At least one has been active on Earth for millennia, so we know they're not planet-crackers, but they don't seem to be encoded with any single power. They grow and develop with their users."

"That didn't really answer his question," Carter observed.

"I have some basic super-strength and dexterity in particular situations," the President said, "and I'm particularly hard to kill. Not impossible, mind, though if I could without blowing my cover I'd dismiss my bodyguard."

"But you'll develop other powers, given time?" Carter wondered.

"Eventually," Lilah agreed.

"How'd we find these 'Exaltation cores'?" O'Neill asked. "If they're ancient alien technology, how'd we get ahold of them?"

"A very strange archeological dig," the President said, "and if I told you more I'd have to kill you."

"Ahhh," O'Neill said. "You might be surprised at my clearance level, Madam President."

"Nope. Pardon me, I have a call to take. Damn. Richmond, Charlotte, and...where was that? Baltimore. Well, at least they seem to have some sort of range limitation. My guess is they're trying to keep a consolidated territory, but it could be tech-related. Pull in everything. We've got to stop this before they open more portals." She sighed and hung up. "Our allies are making noises about their homelands being at risk. We're getting no help at all."

"We do have the biggest military in the world," Carter said quietly. 

"A great deal of it is committed elsewhere in strategic locations or tit-for-tat arrangements that, surprise surprise, other nations are reluctant to honor right now. We'll pull it out if we have to, of course, but it means delays we can't afford." Lilah punched the bulkhead; O'Neill noticed that while she didn't appear to have hurt herself, she didn't leave a dent, either. The phone rang again. "What? What the hell? Colonel, they've opened up another front in Germany. All Europe is panicking."

O'Neill's heart went cold. "They know. They know what you just told me. They have--" He spun and--

Replicarter Two pinned him to the seat with a spear and lunged at the President. "Excessively Righteous Blossom greets you...Yozi-spawn."

It was an absurdly dramatic way to attack someone, and O'Neill used his undamaged arm to pull his service revolver free, though he only got off one good shot. The bullet passed through Replicarter, leaving a hole briefly, before embedding itself in a seat. If you could still call this thing Replicarter now; it plainly looked like a silver man.

"Keep firing!" Lilah yelled, but he couldn't get a clear shot from this position. "Shoot it!" When he didn't immediately fire again, she sighed, "Got to do everything myself," and kicked the robot where its balls should be if it had any. When this didn't work, she seized Excessively Righteous Blossom by its excessively long hair and slammed their heads together with a crack that rattled O'Neill's own skull. The robot...or whatever it was, reeled back, stunned, but kept him pinned to the chair. Free from concern for the POTUS, he jammed the muzzle against the creature's temple and fired.

With a gaping opening in its head, the thing went limp. The spear through O'Neill's shoulder collapsed like a wet noodle, and he struggled to his feet. "Madam President, I--"

An eruption of force slammed him into the ceiling, and the world went black.

*****

"Valiant," the robot said, "but only in the service of evil."

Lilah snickered. "He's a good soldier. He knows basically nothing about me. As for evil, you're the one invading a free country for no reason I can understand." She dropped to the floor and slithered under the seats, snagging O'Neill's gun as she went.

The robot responded by ripping seats out of the floor. "I serve the Machine God. That's all I need to know, and more than you do."

As he tore out the seat she was under, Lilah fired at him three times, emptying the gun. The robot stared at her in contempt...then staggered. "I'm not as powerless as I might seem, tin man. You think by fighting me in a flying metal tube, you have me cornered. You're absolutely right." And she drove a metal chair support into his chest.

The robot stumbled as it ripped the metal free, then stared. The fluid body parts trying to meld the wound back together were turning black and dripping uselessly onto the floor.

"Colonel," she said, "get up." And she beckoned to him. "Don't open any windowshades." The robot took no notice of it; he had no fear of mortals. His mistake. Behind him, O'Neill rose to a crouch, assessed the situation, and scurried forward away from the fight. He wasn't fleeing. She trusted him.

He vanished into the cockpit as she swept her feet beneath the assassin. The android leapt above her and she lunged forward, seizing his legs and rolling. His head slammed into a fallen chair.

As he rose, seemingly unhurt, the plane pitched forward, forcing him to drop to a crouch rather than go tumbling, and began to roll. Suddenly the cockpit wall was the floor.

O'Neill's voice crackled out over the intercom. "Yea though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for we are at...28000 feet and falling rapidly. Got that?" Air Force One bucked and shuddered; it was military-grade, but it had never been intended for combat maneuvers.

O'Neill's plan was ingenious, but it had at least one flaw--she was now in much tighter quarters with a murderous android. Lilah crouched and sprang straight up, snagging a torn chair support with her fingers, then swung over to a Secret Service weapons locker. In all the chaos, no one but O'Neill, the fake Carter, and the pilot had boarded the plane, but it'd been searched from stem to stern. They were relying on jet fighters for external security. Lilah listened to the tumblers and cracked the combination in seconds.

The android dragged her back down before she could grab any ammunition, but she landed on her feet and pistol-whipped him in the face. Nothing, but he was still leaking black fluid from the torso. She crouched and leapt a second time, but as she did so the plane whipped level and sent her sprawling across the floor-wall-ceiling-floor-again.

A cartridge slid into her grip. She slammed it into the gun and fired into the robot's mouth as it loomed over her. Black gunk sprayed the wall and floor behind him.

"Sorry for the turbulence!" O'Neill yelled. "I'm a little rusty!" The plane arced steeply upward, sending Lilah sliding to the other end of the office cabin; the robot, while unaffected, pounded after her in a rage. Where was the pilot? Lilah hoped the colonel hadn't eaten him. She'd learned the hard way before O'Neill arrived that Fyarl were as vulnerable to moonsilver as the regular stuff, or she'd have made him one of those instead.

Time to take a page from Ozymandias. She opened the door and dropped into a briefing room, catching up a remote as she fell. Amusingly, the android asked, "Is that a weapon?"

"You could say that," she said, and hit the power button. "My fellow citizens, these are trying times for the United States of America. Be assured, I stand beside you--" The android dropped onto her, spear-arms poised. "--in trial, suffering, and even physical combat." She kicked its legs from under it and stomped on its wounded midsection. "Rest assured, we will prevail. And yes, you can believe your eyes." She bent down and hefted the creature over her head. "I am not a stunt double or CGI. What you see..." SLAM! "...is completely real." It was also sideways, of course. She hoped she was actually visible.

With a tearing noise like a roaring tyrannosaur, the plane lurched and began to spin. "Be advised that we are experiencing equipment failure," the colonel warned. "We may suffer some loss of control and severe impact damage. All hands are advised to get their emergency gear and proceed to the escape hatches."

"Colonel! You know we're on the air?"

"Sorry. The warning stands, though."

*****

Kate shook herself. She couldn't stand around staring at the television; she had to get to the other side of the country...somehow. But all commercial flights were being diverted away from the East Coast.

"Breaking news: this is straight from Air Force One itself, and you're going to have to see it to believe it." The screen cut to a staticky image of Lilah Morgan throwing down with one of the invaders in what looked like a mockup of the Oval Office.

"You cannot defeat me here," the silvery android intoned. "I am only an avatar of a greater power. I am the city Sively Loss. You cannot hope to match me."

Lilah mugged for the camera as the android unleashed some sort of energy burst at her. "With a name like that, the outcome here i--" The rest was cut off by a roar of rushing air, and a gash of blue sky spread across the screen.

The android had ripped the plane wide open.

The screen went black for a moment. "We have lost the President's transmission," the reporter mourned.

*****

O'Neill had already shoved the pilot out with a parachute. Now he just had to get one to the President. What had she been thinking, giving him powers that made him catch fire in sunlight? Not to mention, she seriously needed to learn how to make a comprehensive report, because this had _not_ been in it. Nevertheless, he had a plan, because he seemed just about impervious to anything else.

Clutching the rag he was using as an impromptu mask, he dropped through the briefing cabin. The plane was still shrieking at him, and as he hit the floor that had been the rear wall, the fuselage tore straight up past him. The whole damn plane was unspooling like a can of biscuit dough.

Below him, Lilah continued to trade blows with "Blossom the Bot". How she wasn't being torn off the "floor" by the screaming wind, he couldn't tell. That wind grabbed his rag, and his face burst into spectacular flame for about a second before the wind put him out again. He still felt as if his face were charring slowly in the sunlight. The plane unraveled further. O'Neill calculated his trajectory and leapt.

He pulled the first cord before his feet were even fully clear, and the chute exploded all around him, blinding him in a spray of cloth. Then he collided with the President, tumbled out of the plane with her--at least, it felt like he was holding her and not the bot--and went falling blindly into empty air. "Four, three, two, one!" he shouted, and pulled the second cord.

The deceleration nearly jerked her out of his hands, but all she said was, "Careful, Colonel. I'm not a piece of meat," and laughed. He adjusted his grip, and she snickered. "That's better. My girlfriend might have objected." She couldn't see his doubletake unless she had x-ray vision too. The President had a girlfriend?

"Got any idea where we're coming down?" he asked. "I say this because I'm afraid to flash-fry my eyeballs getting a look."

The President waved her hand dismissively, and the pain in his shoulder returned with a vengeance. Vengeance 2: Electric Boogaloo, specifically. Weirdly, his burned face receded from his awareness. Probably it was just his body's priorities. He pulled the parachute away from his face and saw a flat sea of green-brown beneath them, with a ribbon of blue to the west, lazily rolling toward the Gulf of Mexico. "Okay, we're somewhere in Flyover Country, ironically enough."

"Still got time to join the Mile-High Club," Lilah suggested with a chuckle, fluttering the snarled chute wrapped around them.

"Madam President," he said, "you are having a post-combat stress reaction. I wouldn't think of taking advantage. Besides, your girlfriend would murderize me."

"Perhaps," the President said consideringly. "She's unpredictable. She might very well appreciate the variety. But I'm not actually sure where she is right now. I last saw her in the White House." 

"Anyway," O'Neill reminded her, "we're down to about four minutes before we hit the ground. I'm a little old for that much of a quickie."

"Fair enough. What's the plan after that?"

O'Neill mulled that over. "Normally I'd say that the F-22s have our location and we should stay put. But if Blossom somehow survived--or if more hostiles come through nearby--we don't need to be here with our hands in our pockets. There's a town to our north. I say we make for it and contact help."

"Works for me. Military? Government? The press?"

"Military if possible. If the best we can find are small-town cops, they're better in a fight than nothing, but maybe there's a nearby military base." The ground was coming up fast. "Get ready to roll. Go limp with it and--Oof!"

And to top it all off, the President stuck the landing with no injuries at all.

*****

A drizzling rain began as Colonel O'Neill and President Morgan slogged through the cornfields towards Kirkville, Illinois. "September 9th will go down in infamy," Jack muttered, "not least for ruining my socks." It was dark humor indeed. In the back of Lilah's head, Darla snickered.

No excessively righteous androids turned up to posture and attack them. Lilah regretted the missed chance at a quip about her equally excessive unrighteousness. The colonel would have taken it as a mere joke.

 _ **He's a well-set-up man,**_ Darla mused. _**Though to be honest, I always did like older men.**_

 _Clearly,_ Lilah retorted. _But yes, he's good-looking. The question is whether I count as his superior in the chain of command. I'm a civilian, C-in-C or not._

 _ **Sounds unethical at least,**_ Darla said. _**I say we seduce him.**_

 _Agreed,_ Lilah thought. _But somewhere comfortable. Not out here surrounded by corn shucks._

 _ **Corn shucks aren't so bad,**_ Darla began, but at last they came to the highway, where several farm trucks had collected. Their drivers were gawking...no, they had a serious discussion going on about the rising smoke and the debris. Was anyone alive? How badly were the fields damaged? Were they in danger of an attack?

Lilah strode up to them in her muddy pantsuit and casually stuck out her thumb. "I'm the President of the United States of America, and I could really use a lift."

That got their attention real fast.

Within the hour a pickup truck had delivered them to the nearest police station, where a squad car conveyed them to the airport. The police secured an area and left them to wait for a new plane--designated Air Force One, of course, but probably not the standard model presidents used these days. Time was of the essence.

The colonel glanced at the police guards and said, under his breath, "Professional, for small town hick cops. I hope they get a raise."

"I'll see to it," Lilah said. "They work for the government, I'm their boss."

"In a roundabout way."

"Federalism and all that." Lilah winked at him. "But really, who could say no to this face?"

The colonel raised his eyebrows. "Someone concerned about proper protocol and ethics?"

"All very important to maintain," Lilah agreed, "for the good of the people. Do you suppose they ever become an end instead of a means, though?"

"Are you saying that when the President does it it's not illegal?" Jack asked. "Because it didn't end so well for the last guy to say that."

"Of course it's illegal when the President does it," Lilah purred. _Which is why I'm still good at it._ "But if you look at it a certain way, I outrank everyone, and yet presidents have been known to fool around." She let her foot touch his.

"Well...I mean," he began, flustered, "it's not illegal for the President to, ah, _do_ it do it."

"There are times when strict adherence to the rules can be bad for the country, which is one reason for the Presidential pardon. Isn't that so?" Lilah slid her hand onto his thigh. The police studiously ignored them.

"Normally, uh, that's a needs-of-the-many situation, though. Madam President," he said, lowering his voice, "I'm in black ops. Sometimes we bend the law. A lot. But--"

"And sometimes," she interjected, "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. We've both seen that movie."

She'd managed to fluster him! "Everyone has n-needs," he stammered.

"Yes. Yes, we do."

When the plane arrived, Secret Service agents scrambled out and scrambled them in in a matter of minutes. "The colonel and I need to have a private discussion in the briefing room about temporary staffing," she explained.

The lead agent nodded simply. "Air Force One is secure, Madam President. Take your time."

And they were off again.


	5. Desolation

Along the Potomac stood the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth. That capital was now ravaged by an invasion force the likes of which Earth had not seen in millennia. Monuments lay toppled, smashed, and defiled. Government buildings ran with the blood of the rulers. Businesses catering to the powerful stood open to looters. Through the devastation moved twisted robotic forms--metal skeletons, barely-humanoid machines, and former humans now reshaped by devices that had invaded their bodies like cancer. The greatest of these wielded powers humanity had all but forgotten.

In one of the broken buildings, a simple white house meant as the unostentatious residence of a citizen-ruler, the currents of space and time stirred. Papers flickered from here to there, and battery-powered clocks shifted their minutes at random. Beds shifted from ruined to just-made and back again. Clothes in closets rearranged themselves, materializing new garments never seen before.

From one such closet in the bedroom of the most powerful woman in the world there stumbled the slight, pallid feminine figure of her lover, coughing up the tattered paper remnants of a prayer strip. She was hardly assuming, this slip of a girl, and yet she was barely less powerful than the one she shared the room and bed of.

She took in the destruction with equanimity. Once she...or a being that was not quite her...had set half of western Europe aflame like this. Then she realized who was not there, and a wail burst from her lips. "Grandmum! Where are you? Grandmum?"

She strolled through the ruined corridors, searching and yet seemingly at her ease. "Where have you taken her? Miss Edith will be very cross, Lilah! I shall have to sew up her mouth to stop her cursing!"

"Halt. Identify yourself." The black gunmetal form was sleek and polished, the weapon in its hand spiked with burnished gold.

She regarded it with quizzical eyes and tilted head. "It wants our name, Miss Edith. It shan't have it, though. Not at all. Names have power."

A visor snapped down over the dark man's eyes. "You are an enemy of the Engine of Extinction. Prepare to die."

Drusilla sighed. She held out a hand and tugged. It wasn't quite part of Fate, not yet, but it had threads that could be sewn in. She ripped them instead. The stranger sank to his knees, bleeding fluid that was too clear to be blood. "You are _my_ enemy. Prepare for suffering." Her left hand flickered and bled as well. What a sinister power to wield. "Grandmum? I'll find you, grandmum!"

She would not let anyone separate the two of them ever again.

**Chapter 95--Desolation**

Buffy waited patiently, but after an hour, Tara was still there at the bow, her attention fixed on the slowly rippling waters ahead of them. No mundane sailing vessel could have navigated the endless doldrums of this salt-choked sea, and the magical engines purred along day and night through this little-traveled stretch of Cecelyne. Finally she joined her Lunar sister-mate at the railing. "You're watching something. What is it?"

Tara nodded and quietly explained, "I'm hunting." Okay, that wasn't much of an explanation, and while Buffy knew from Fred that hunting was part of the Lunar power system it was hard to imagine Tara doing it. She started to ask, and Tara pointed out across the undulating sea. "That b-black thing, the long one? That's not a fish or a whale. It's an infernal worm, one of Kimbery's demons."

"Those big lamprey things? Those were nasty. I think Xander killed a few." It must be heading back to the demon realm. Maybe it was one they'd fought. "Tara, why would you hunt that? Fred said she couldn't take demon shapes."

"It has to be learned," Tara said, "and my magic is more developed than Fred's. She probably can't yet. But that's not what you're asking, not really. Is it?"

Buffy shook her head. "I thought that was the thing that scared you most about yourself, that you could be a demon."

Tara smiled the toothiest smile Buffy had ever seen from her. "It was. It still is. And I'm going to overcome it. T-today."

"But those things...why not a neomah? Or, I don't know, an angyalkae or something? Infernal worms are...they're...."

"Disgusting," Tara said, nodding. "Somewhere else I might hunt a metody, or a marotte. I'm g-going to face it, Buffy, and I'm g-going to become it. And it's going to make me stronger. You understand?" Buffy tried nodding, but Tara must have read in her expression that she didn't really get it. "It's time to close in for the k-kill. I wish I could let you join me. Maybe after the first one?" She climbed over the railing. "See you in a little while for our lessons." And she vanished beneath the water with hardly a splash.

*****

Samantha Carter floated in darkness and silence, straining for some kind of sensation. A glimmer of light, a scent, anything. As it had been for hours...she thought...she perceived only oblivion.

 **Don't you find it peaceful?"** Not sound, not exactly. But it was _something_.

"No," she said into the void. "They use sensory deprivation as a form of torture, you know?"

 **How strange,** , the not-voice said. **Well, then you must be itching to get out of here. I have an offer to make you. An offer of power. Call me Jasmine.**

"I was told you couldn't reach me like this," Sam told the presence.

**You were told wrong. I can reach you on the verge of death. Well, you're on the verge of death. Have been for most of the day. Suffering from brain damage resulting in coma. If they stop stimulating your lungs you'll suffocate in seconds. Might be kinder.**

"Is that what you think?" Sam asked. "Are you better off dead?"

**I would be, yes. I'm mostly dead already. They call what I am "Onceborn". I was human a long time ago. Then I evolved into something else, before they killed me. Now I'm a...ghost, for lack of a better word, but one with huge powers and more clarity than the Neverborn. But I can't finish dying. Listen.**

A sussurus of voices spilled into Carter's mind, too many and too faint to hear clearly, like the chants and wails of a million different mourners. But like such chanting, sheer chance caused phrases to overlap and pass the threshold of consciousness.

_...bone so white, bone to crack, crack the bones..._

_...once there was sunlight here where is the sun why is it always night...._

_. ..oh god it hurts make it stop make it stop you hate me why...._

_...proton decay big crunch big rip vacuum collapse..._

_...tired so tired just let it stop let it end make it finally go away..._

Carter struggled to shut it out, to cover her imaginary ears with imaginary hands, but the onslaught continued. "Stop it!"

**I can't. When I'm not enduring it I'm saying it. Sometimes I'm saying it regardless. Don't you want it to stop? Don't you know what it's like to be so miserable you'd rather end it all than suffer any longer? They promised me, you know. They promised me it wouldn't last long. They lied.**

"What do you want me to _do_?"

**Caleb isn't much of a servant. He has his brute-force uses, but you can't punch the universe to death. Not yet, anyway. But I have one more, slightly used, one meant for a brain like yours. You can have it. The power to blow up stars, Samantha Carter. Imagine that.**

"No. I don't want that kind of power."

**Then we have a problem. Because used to be, when people reached the verge of death, they died. Not you. Enjoy being an honorary Onceborn, Sam. It's going to last a long, long, _long_ time.**

The presence faded, leaving Carter with only the cosmic background radiation of the whispers of Oblivion for company.

*****

"I think I understand the problem," Willow said. "Your essential pattern changed when D'Hoffryn transformed you into a demon. Your souls weren't altered, but your body was."

Anya nodded eagerly. "So how do I fix it? It's embarrassing to be so old a Sidereal and not know any sorcery."

Willow put her tongue between her teeth for a moment, clearly not understanding how much more disturbing that was when she looked like a mummy. "I _think_ we can fix the problem with a new sacrifice. It'll reset you properly. I'm not sure how to go about it, though. An inappropriate sacrifice could hold you back pretty badly."

"At Department 137," Anya said, "they do it numerologically. You pick the three most important things in your life, then you work out their numbers and yours. You give up the one that interacts most inauspiciously with you."

"What would that be?" Willow studied her. "Xander, of course. But the other two?"

Anya pondered that for a minute or two. "My life. No, not like that. I'm over a thousand. I'm set in my ways just as certainly as Chejop was. If I lost my memory, or most of it...."

"Would you even be you any more?" Willow didn't seem to like that idea. "What would be left?"

"Brigid wasn't," Anya said. "Have you heard the story here? She sacrifices herself--her image of herself as weak and useless. And she becomes the Mother of All Spells."

"What's the third thing?"

"That's a good question." Anya scribbled on the table. "It's like...there's never been much me to me anyway. I set off the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Now I'm a capitalist. I wreaked bloody vengeance on men, but now I'm married to one. Except for vengeance, I don't know that I ever had much of a purpose to my life...and that's been gone for over three years now."

"Isn't that a little odd for a Chosen of the Maidens?" Willow asked. "I mean yeah, the endings are there, but...shouldn't there be some bigger direction?"

"I devoted myself to reforming Heaven," Anya reminded her. "The movement's already taken on a life of its own."

"Well, then, does it really need you any more? Maybe you need something else already. Something even bigger."

"Xander," Anya said, writing it down. "Memory. Or lack of direction. Now I'd have to work out their numbers...except I haven't had much of the actual training."

"Losing your memory sounds awful, but you might not have to lose it all," Willow said. "Losing Xander...well, if you're in love with him surely that's at least as bad. As for losing your 'lack of direction'...it sounds awfully system-game-y, but it also matches stories like Brigid's."

"Well, Brigid wasn't really looking for sorcery exactly," Anya explained, "and her other trials were pretty rough. The sacrifice is usually something that was holding you back anyway--like, if you cut off your hand, it's probably got to do with being too dependent on your fighting skill or your self-image."

"Is Xander holding you back?"

"I don't think so. In some ways other Sidereals take me less seriously. But other times he helps maintain my cred as an Independent."

Willow pulled out a crystal pad. "I can help you run the numbers, but I probably can't just do it for you. I took some of Luthe's memory crystal stash, so I think I can pull up the basics."

Anya nodded and walked over to help decide her fate.

*****

Catherine Madison threw back her head and laughed. She'd caught just enough news to understand that there was some kind of extraplanar invasion going on on the East Coast. Well, she didn't care. Even if Korsheth were here to take her back, he'd have a hell of a fight on his hands.

Faith, that misbegotten slut of a Slayer who'd seduced her cow of a daughter, staggered under the toxic onslaught. She still though she could fight it off. Maybe she could have, if it'd been a physical venom made to sicken her. This was something else.

"Piper!" Faith growled. "You stupid bitch! Fight back!" Piper actually whimpered at the idea. It didn't matter, of course. Catherine had more power in her little finger than this excuse for...whatever she was. "I'm gonna kill you if she doesn't, Piper! I'm gonna kill every asshole who ever got me into this!"

Catherine decided to stand back and watch. This could be amusing. Afterwards she'd lead Faith to her new ex-lover and enjoy her taking Amy apart.

Piper held up her hands defensively as Faith plowed into her. Faith was no smarter than that little blonde brat who'd handed her over to Korsheth; of course she fought like a charging bull. There was no playing now, no training. Faith would--

Piper drove her fingers into Faith's eyeballs, and the Slayer fell back, clutching her face. She could overcome this, of course; she would have her ways. She would--

Piper began singing softly to herself. Her hands were shaking. "Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin. The blood of Jesus whispers peace within."

It was all Catherine could do not to burst out laughing. Believers in traditional religions were absurd, Christians in particular. And Sunnydale Christians were the worst, of course--either terrified sheep or rabid wolves. Moreover, Piper was plainly attached to dark powers; if her god were real and as she believed, he'd reject her at once.

Faith stopped attacking. She circled warily, hands up, but she held back. Why? Piper's powers were negligible compared to Faith's. _Was_ there something to her, or her song, that Catherine was missing? A chill went down her spine. Somehow, Piper was faking her weakness. Otherwise...otherwise Faith would have annihilated her by now.

"Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed. To do the will of Jesus--"

Someone touched down in a flurry of black feathers. "Faith! I've been trying to call you! We gotta put her through live fire, there's a big disaster going down--" She turned. "Crap. Mom?"

*****

"So what's the spell?" Alexander said. Next to him, Octavian lifted a massive eyebrow.

Fred grinned. "Let's see if this works. 'A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked.'" White energy trickled from her aura and flowed upward, shaping itself into M. C. Escher's idea of a circuit board.

Alexander blinked. "What the hell? If it worked when he did it, then the student was right all along. But if he was right, then why'd Knight get upset with him?" He glanced at Octavian; despite being one hell of a brick, the demon lord was no slouch either. The Quarter Prince was scratching his head, deep in thought. Beyond him, Dawn tugged at her hair.

"I'm a dumbass," Alexander said finally. "Knight was making fun of him the whole time. I mean, yeah, if the student had known what was wrong it would've blown Knight's little game, but he was doing the right thing." He looked around. Octavian was gone. Dawn was gone. Fred was sitting in her chair. The white symbol winked out. "Aw, c'mon. I was _last_? With the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Living Tower in the audience?"

"Octavian thinks in different ways from us, but he's in no way stupid," Fred explained. "He said after a few minutes that since Knight _did_ understand what was the matter the statement didn't apply to him. What worries me is that Dawn said a few minutes later that Knight could do it because the student and the machine were all part of his thought-experiment. I mean, that's a true solution, but it's even more out there than Octavian's."

"So Dawn is thinking more and more like a raksha," Alexander concluded, "and less and less like the human girl we're used to."

"What if we have to put her down?" Fred wondered. "She just took out a Deathlord, even if we did have to hit him pretty hard first."

"Raksha can't be trusted," Octavian said, slouching back into the room. "One day they're your best friend...and then, poof, they change something about themselves and you've got a knife in your back. Even if her amnesia had lasted it still might've happened. She was never _really_ Lady Summers' sister."

"What do we do?" Alexander asked him.

"Well, they can be bound with oaths," Octavian suggested, "but if you ask me it's not worth your time. I say kill it while...damn, you've been bedding her, haven't you? Don't look at me, you're the Solar here. You figure it out."

*****

"So what part am I supposed to have in this big destiny?" Prudence grumbled. "My sisters take the easy road and they get powers; I try to learn the real truth and go the empowering route and I get nothing."

"Destiny takes its own time," Five Days' Darkness said condescendingly. "More importantly, only a few Exaltations are free. Lilah hasn't released anywhere near all of them, and unless she brought the Prison with her to her bunker, won't any time soon. Even when they were all free, there weren't enough for true meritocracy; it's even worse now."

"Then why aren't we looking for them?" Prudence stood and glared at him. "Hell, why didn't you take them from her?"

"Have you ever tried to stand up to a determined Exalt, Prudence?" Five regarded her with resigned amusement. "I can barely hold up against Harmony, whose unconventional circumstances have made her slow to develop. Lilah is a Fiend caste. She was made to slide past all social opposition. And Mara has seen to her training, even if I had shirked it. Mara has immense ability to empower those she finds...interesting."

"Who interests her?" Prudence said, folding her arms across her chest.

"Those fated to cause great suffering," Five said resignedly.

"And you went along with that?" Prudence strode forward and shook her finger in his face!

"I did what I had to to save the world from annihilation! I assure you, if the universe ends, there will be no more suffering, Prudence. Chew on that a while." He took Prudence's hand and carefully moved it aside. "As for going to Washington to retrieve the Prison, the East Coast is crawling with Alchemical Exalted. They alone were free of it, and their Exaltations are the only sort humans know how to make more of, in Autochthonia at least. They aren't the strongest by any means, but they're stronger than any mortal, and I suspect at least one metropolis has come through. Alchemicals evolve into _cities_ , Prudence."

"So we're screwed."

"I did not, and will not, say that."

*****

In the third White House subbasement, Drusilla put out her hand in the darkness and found the box of genies. But there was no way to rub it, not now, not here.

She would have to get it out. Out past the mannikins and marionettes and difference engines. What had happened here? Where had they come from? Why were they breaking everything?

She put it into her pocket. That would have to be safe enough.


	6. Inherit the Whirlwind

The conflict spreads, and the skies rain fire.

Autochthon's people have one weakness: wide-open spaces. The few great chasms within his world-body have been occupied for centuries by the Eighty Nations. Conflict has always been within the cramped confines of tunnels and conduits. They are not ready for open sky, for wide plains, for sky-touching peaks.

With the Exalted on their side it hardly matters. Innovation that should span centuries takes place in days, or even hours.

Jet fighters clash with magnetic hovercraft, firing missiles that home in on exhaust ports that aren't there and are cut from their paths by Essence cannons the defenders barely comprehend. Ground-based artillery fares no better and is obliterated in return.

The greatest nation in the world hurls its military against a force from beyond it...and that well-oiled machine of destruction is sent back in pieces or not at all.

The Locust War has reached New Jersey, and other fronts are opening across the globe. The invaders are not even a united front--some serve the Bleeding Engine, some the Engine of Extinction, and some are merely seeking one last hope of survival as Autochthon grinds toward one ending or the other.

Even with this lack of coordination, the defenders don't stand a chance. They don't have the technology. They certainly don't have the magic. And most of all, they don't have enough Exalted.

But they keep trying all the same.

**Chapter 96--Inherit the Whirlwind**

"Fire," the Shoat of the Mire snaps, and the NJPD's weapons thunder as one. The armored creature lumbering toward them pauses as if to wonder what they think to accomplish. Bullets ricochet from its cerametal skin.

It shrugs, and suddenly the vampires are upon it, clawing, rending, stabbing with shards of metal improvised from the few Autochthonian forces to suffer losses. It is a living Alchemical; somewhere beneath all that armor is skin, and beneath that, blood.

The monstrosity slings the monsters away, and faces another threat entirely as a sedan comes hurtling toward it. It brings up a metal arm that bounces the vehicle harmlessly into a storefront, only to be smashed in the faceplate by a convertible.

The convertible vanishes. Shoat holds up her hand. "Surrender now," she orders. "If you do, I'll let you live."

A grating noise, irregular and harsh, emanates from the cyborg. Shoat recognizes it as laughter as the Alchemical charges. She does not appreciate being laughed at. She flicks her hand dismissively.

The convertible blossoms from the armored body like a fungus sprouting from a corpse, spraying blood and coolant and tiny metal shards. The Alchemical thuds to the ground.

One down. Several thousand to go. Shoat wishes herself luck.

*****

Dawn Summers doesn't belong here. She has bent time and space to the breaking point to reach this location.

That's okay. Time and space were never meant to exist anyway. She shivers, struggling to shake off the alien thought. Humans are people too. Humans need time and space to live. This is only acceptable because she's here to save them. The universe is big enough for the both of them. The Wyld can tolerate a little sliver in its finger.

Dawn Summers lifts her head up. This is Firewander, the Wyld Zone buried in the heart of Nexus. Compared to her previous location in the Skullstone Archipelago, she is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Lookshy and the onrushing forces of Thorns. She's seen the redemption of an Abyssal...and now she has a plan.

The city is in chaos. The sky is black with sullen clouds that rain blood. Undead throng the city walls, not attacking, but not retreating either. The inhabitants race in every direction, looting and searching for some escape. Not even the penalties for violations of the Dogma are enough to prevent crime when one is apt to be dead tomorrow anyway.

And one most certainly is, Dawn realizes as she sees the dark reflection of her sister stalk up the streets, clad in black metal plate and wielding a sword bigger than herself. The Maiden With the Mirthless Smile, it's said, has known no compassion or mercy since a childhood that consisted of torturing small animals and murdering her family. It's a kind of sickness, Dawn knows, a brokenness of the mind. The Maiden is a sociopath, _her_ redemption inconceivable.

Dawn steps out into the street ahead of her. She can feel the Maiden's bloodlust, her dreams of slaughter, the cracked virtue that can only bleed the impotent mercy of a quick death followed by Oblivion. The Maiden sees her and breaks into a charge, grin almost breaking into laughter. They have met before, and Dawn, still unaware of what she was, violated the Maiden's mind in self-defense.

"You wouldn't," Dawn begins.

The Maiden cackles like the Joker, and Dawn rolls desperately to one side. Firewander is Wyld enough that she escapes with her head still attached. "Wouldn't I, 'sister'?"

"No," Dawn says breathlessly. "You wouldn't. Not if you knew what was about to happen." The ground shifts just enough to unsettle the Maiden's footing, and Dawn escapes being cloven in two.

"What's about to happen?" the Maiden sneers. "Are you going to kill me, you little figment?"

"No more than I killed the Silver Prince," Dawn says.

The Maiden snickers. "Of course you didn't. What could?" Her blade comes around again, and Dawn has to leap above it this time, wishing she could balance on the blade like Buffy.

"Worse than that," Dawn informs her. "I'm going to make you beg to die. There's nothing worse than what I'm about to do to you. Just ask Angel." She holds up a little crystalline trinket like a dagger, then flings it into a wall, shattering it.

The Maiden blinks, frowns...hesitates. She looks around, seeing the fleeing people as if for the first time. Seeing the rotten faces of her zombie army.

The Maiden goes from pale to green. Her throat convulses. Her knees buckle, and she vomits messily on the ground.

"Toldya," says Dawn.

"What have you done to me?" the Maiden shrieks. She is not smiling now. Big fat tears roll down her uncomprehending face. "By the gods, what have I...what have you done?"

"Your soul was broken," Dawn says. "From birth, maybe, from what I hear. So I fixed it. You can feel guilt again. Compassion. Who knows? Maybe you can even love. You might actually enjoy that part."

The Maiden scrubs at her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'll kill you first." She staggers to her feet.

Dawn shakes her head. "Too late. Won't matter." She turns and runs back into the Wyld Zone, but not to flee. Five steps back in, she ducks around a corner and sheds her human skin.

The Maiden comes around the corner, a low snarl emanating from her throat, but Dawn Summers is nowhere to be seen, only an abandoned infant whimpering in a broken cradle. The Maiden smiles and lowers her blade. She'll slice the babe most of the way in half and watch it try to scream until it dies.

Seeing her, the baby smiles back and begins to gurgle. The Maiden reaches down. She'll strangle it with her bare hands. It grabs hold of her finger. Baffled, she pulls away from its surprising grip, and it reaches for her. "What...I don't...?"

She picks the little larva up. It wriggles in her grip. "You don't belong on a battlefield," she says. "I'll take you away from here. One of my circle will know what to do with you."

Dawn Summers coos.

*****

"If anyone objects," the pilot says, "we can still try to ditch the plane. You have that choice. But our odds are not good. Or we can do what we can to fight back. We will die. There's no question of that. Anyone?" She closes the mike. They're too deep in the combat zone. After a few seconds, the co-pilot pulls his head in and points up and forward.

For a moment she catches a glimpse of the other plane as she pulls the yoke back. The burning Manhattan skyline sinks out of view, replaced by a city floating impossibly in the sky above the harbor, fighter jets circling, firing everything they have at the monster craft.

"I must tell you this," says the man beside her. "We did not bring the box cutters to fight alien robot zombies. And an alien spacecraft was not our target."

The pilot takes this in as the welded, jagged metal fills her viewport. What do you say to a confession like that? There must be civilians on that thing, if the aliens have any, so how different are the two of them now? Finally she chokes out, "God is great."

The bearded man's eyes widen slightly. He nods, and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Allahu akb--"

*****

" _Ohmygod!_ " Harmony screams, and pulls her head back into the car. Kate doesn't answer. She sees the impact too, but all the lanes are clogged with fleeing people and she's driving eighty miles an hour, forcing the car through dodges that ought to be impossible. She can't allow herself to react, not even when the second plane explodes in a fireball of jet fuel. Against the background of the Autochthonian city, it might as well be a pinprick.

Swerving cars collide in her wake. A bus rolls in front of her, and she cuts hard to the right. Too late, but the bus strikes the guard rail with such force that it bounces into the air and goes flying over her, metal scraping the roof. Grimly she rights her car. That can't be a natural wreck.

Then the cause alights in front of her, stinking of burning oil, a gear-grinding monster that punches both feet into the road as it lands. Kate slams the car into park and goes flying through the windshield...just as planned. She lands on all fours, a charging mass of flesh, bone, and fur. The robot laughs at her until she seizes its armored foot in her jaws and yanks. The tumbling car slams it in the chest as it goes down.

Harmony? The girl is fine. She's clinging to the thing's shoulder, and as it rolls she alights on the ground. "Cover me!" she yells. Crap. Is she really going to try this thing? Kate roars a response and leaps atop the robot's chest, savaging every loose or moving part she can see as she goes. The robot--the Alchemical colossus--struggles to its feet. She's way out of her league, but she hangs on as it fights to wrench her loose and fling her off.

Kate hits the ground on her back and goes tumbling away, but from the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of Harmony coughing up massive quantities of blood into the black metal accreting out of the air around her, lifting her higher, higher. The blood and shadow solidify into a rust-red mecha, twenty-five feet tall and still shorter at that than the colossus they're facing. A blazing green eye adorns the chestpiece, and as it fixes on the Alchemical the giant stumbles and goes to one knee.

The black mecha brings the hilt of a gigantic sword down on its head. "Woot woot woot!" Harmony squeals. "Score one for the necromancer!"

Kate just groans. Reverting to battle form, she pops out her revolver and opens fire.

*****

Cordelia can see the Shadowland approaching, its border currently defined by the grey, unnatural clouds that cover it. Under those clouds march an army unlike anything that lives, scrabbling bone and shambling flesh. And at its heart, a thing that burns the righteous to ash.

She has had days to figure out how to fight this thing, and so far she has nada. Giles and Gunn seem grimly determined to do what they must, and even Wussley had some sort of eureka moment yesterday. She's going to die here, and die _uselessly_ , and that just sickens her.

Giles passes her the steering yoke and closes his eyes. His right hand goes to a spot on his left arm, fingers pressing against some old...tattoo. Oh crap. "Eyghon, Sleepwalker. I invoke you. Come to this willing vessel. Be one with me. Be one with this world."

His back arches, his eyes roll up into his head, his teeth grind. "Yes, yes, yes! Free! Free to...." The demon swivels Giles' head around to study its situation. "Well, bollocks.This is going to be one hell of a day."

"No worries," Gunn says. "We'll take it on together."

"Are you cracked in the head?" Cordelia slaps him. "You won't hold up five seconds. Even if your shining armor protects you from burning up, he just has to rip you to shreds, or let his army do it."

"That's where we come in," Wesley says. "I will create a torrent of water with magic to sweep away the shambling hordes, Gunn and Giles will engage the Judge, and you will keep any survivors from their backs. Try not to catch his attention."

"So basically I'm here to try not to die. Fun times."

Gunn looks at her. "Just like always. And hey, who knows? Maybe another Deathlord will think you've got potential. You could end up like Willow."

"Thanks a lot." Cordelia closes rher eyes and prepares to burn.

"Let me see," Wes murmurs, "I incant the Birthing Word of Rivers and strike the ground with my weapon. But what counts as a weapon, I wonder?"

"Jesus," Cordelia begins. "You're going to waste--"

Wesley shouts some incomprehensible gibberish and slams the landspeeder's underside into the ground in the worst parody of a landing she can imagine. There's a thunderous crack, and suddenly the speeder is riding the rapids of a newborn river. The zombies go down like bowling pins, and there is...

 _not_ the Judge. The woman standibg there looks like her name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and she's wearing a chainmail bikini.

Okay. This should be a piece of cake after all.

*****

The ground shakes, and Samantha Finn goes down hard. She's back on her feet in an instant, trailing flames, but that lava is coming closer and she's pretty sure getting buried in it is still a bad idea.

Riley gestures, and the ground collapses beneath the lava flow, but this time instead of the lava sinking back into the ground, another fiery tongue bursts from the hole. Riley groans. "You've got to be kidding me!"

"This town is built in a volcanic crater!" Buffy yells, racing up beside him on some sort of speeder bike. "It's supposed to be dormant, but I guess it's waking up!"

"I see you've got the evac well underway," Sam says. "Good work."

"Yeah," Buffy says reluctantly, "but I've already saved this place three times. I don't really wanna let it blow now. Riley?" She looks him up and down. "You've changed. Earth aspect, I see. Feyrendahl? Thaan?"

Another pair of Dragon-Blooded, one jet, the other the tan of sandstone, came running up. "We're trying, Despot. The magma is rising higher," said the woman with the shiny black skin. "I see you've found another Earth aspect, but even so--"

"We're going down," Buffy said. "We're going to blast holes in the mountainside _below_ the city. If we can get it to drain, then at worst we lose some roads."

"Buffy," Sam warned, "there are people on those roads."

"I'll keep them as safe as possible," Buffy agreed, "but if the mountain blows they're all dead anyway. C'mon."

"Into the Hellmouth," Riley grumbled.

Buffy shook her head. "You have no idea."

*****

Buffybot screams.

"Breathe," Knox urges. "Just do your breathing and--" The android seizes him by the hair.

"I. Do. Not. Breathe," she says, and shoves him across the room.

"How many is this now?" Lorne asks. "The mannequin came out of your mouth, the AI came out of your CPU, you drew that paper thing...."

"Seven," Buffybot says, straining. "This one makes...seven. Ayiii!!" The mound of her belly quivers. It makes no sense; she doesn't have a uterus. Certainly Warren would never have included one.

"You're about to start pushing," Knox warns. "It'll end soon, I promise."

"I understand now," she says, taking Lorne's hand. "I'm not a behemoth at all. Maybe that was a mistake. Or maybe propaganda."

"What are you, then?" Lorne wants to know.

"I'm a god."

*****

Buffy clambers back onto the boat. The sea is still salt, but the currents are shifting. She can feel the difference on her skin. Soon it'll go from merely lifeless to corrosive and, paradoxically, teeming with monsters. Probably not the best of places for her to be, but she has to get back into hell somewhere, doesn't she?

"You tried," Mnemon says. "No one was expecting you to go overboard."

Buffy shrugs. "Either I'll get it or I won't." She accepts a quick kiss from the ancient Terrestrial. "In the meantime, I've got to watch out for the gates. We're almost through Cecelyne, and Kimbery is still going to be pissed at me."

"Best to make landfall quickly, then," Mnemon agrees. "Would you believe I've never been in Malfeas before?"

"You're a Terrestrial," Buffy says. "You'll never be as awesome as me." She makes certain the wink is very obvious.

Mnemon goes very pale. "Then perhaps we'd best get your friends." She points ahead. Green-tinted brass walls loom before them, and on the other side of a titanic grate the whirlpool spins unendingly.

Buffy leans on the tiller, fighting the current, but the rudder is all but useless. They're heading for a maelstrom big enough to swallow Greenland.

Kimbery gulps, and the ship hurtles forever down.


	7. Avatar

"It's not a joke," Buffybot explained, now that she had the baby in her arms. "I finally remember what I am."

"A god?" Knox said skeptically.

"Not exactly," Buffybot said. "Thousands of years ago, Autochthon reorganized his soul hierarchy to make it more rational. Streamlined the process, turned it into a procedure instead of a birth. The people he took with him, they worship his souls, the Divine Ministers, as gods. Technically, they're deva. Demons who didn't fall.

"But when he left Creation, he left me behind."

"You're a deva, then," Lorne said. "Coulda told you that."

Buffybot nodded. "The Primordials grow slowly, but they do grow. They can create new Second-Circle souls, called 'Progenitive souls', that slowly grow up into new Third Circles and change the nature of the Primordial they came from. I don't understand why he didn't want me."

"Seems obvious to me," Knox said. "He didn't want to change. Who does?"

"Maybe he was afraid he wouldn't be pro-human any more," Lorne suggested. "Wasn't it just him and Gaia who were good guys?"

"I think so," Buffybot agreed, "but it's not like I really remember that. I know what I was imprinted with, and I know he must have left me behind. And I know what I have to do."

"What you have to do?" Lorne studied her newborn, which simply looked like a baby boy, human as human could be. It was...a soul of a god? One of seven souls? Weird. Not as weird as Earth, but weird.

"Autochthon is dying. The invasion...it's sort of a last spasm. He's at the brink. If the kill switch on his fetich soul works, he'll become a new Yozi, the Bleeding Engine, which might be survivable but won't be good. If it doesn't, and he dies completely, he'll become a new Neverborn. The Engine of Extinction will kill Gaia, the remnants of Creation will die, and everything in existence will vanish into Oblivion."

"And our third option?" Knox wondered.

"Get me to the Core," Buffybot explained. "Link me back into his systems. It'll change him, hopefully enough to survive. Maybe he'll even get well."

Lorne groaned and shook his head. "Save the cheerleader, save the world? I've heard worse plot pitches."

**Chapter 97--Avatar**

Rupert Giles struggled for purchase within the greater mind of Eyghon. It had been necessary to submerge himself in the demon's amorality to face the Judge, but the Judge was not here, and he had given Eyghon too much control. If he lost his balance even for a moment it would devour his soul and subsume his body as its own.

This being in front of him seemed to be an Abyssal Exalt, like the Maiden with the Mirthless Smile, but her skin was a little redder, her motions more lifelike, and though she lacked the frozen beauty of the other, she was certainly an attractive woman. She smiled at him, and the smile seemed to convey genuine emotion that was not bloodlust or sadistic glee, though there were traces of those as well. That meant little; vampires could manage as much, some of them, and yet remain vicious killers.

"Giles! Get away from her!" It sounded like...

"Buffy!" Cordelia shouted. "Where've you been?"

Giles struggled to focus on the approaching figure. Eyghon wanted their attention on the Abyssal. That had indeed been Buffy's voice, though it had a digitized quality to it, and something else he couldn't place. The new arrival was armored...gunzosha? Gunzosha power armor, yes. 

Buffy came to a halt amidst the toppled zombies and began dispatching them with a blade through the neck. Why the armor? From what he knew, it offered Buffy as she now was little protection. "Stay back," she warned. "She can kill you with a thought."

The Abyssal turned a languorous gaze on Buffy. "Yes, any mortal--" she started, and one of the tumbled zombies rose up to stab her in the leg. With a screech, she whirled on it and slashed its head off with a borrowed sword. The head rolled in Giles' direction. It seemed strangely unrotted, yet with vacant, staring eyes.

"My lady! An attempt on your life?" A pale messenger came racing up, dressed in the light armor of a scout.

"It hardly matters," the Abyssal murmured, ignoring the rest of them completely, "but yes. Speak! What information have you brought me?"

"An Infernal Exalt is coming to meet you," he wheezed. "A Slayer!"

"Oh. Is that so?" She turned to study Giles' group, and as she did so, the messenger drove his shortsword into her guts. Then she turned back and calmly said, "Ouchies. How rude." Then, and only then, did she scream. The messenger staggered and fell to his knees with bleeding ears and a desiccated face. He got up again, but seemed disoriented as well as hurt.

Buffy slammed an armored fist into the woman's face, sending blood and teeth flying. "Who's rude? That's my Slayer you're screeching at, Enoby. I'm going to have to kick your ass."

The Abyssal shook her head; her nose stopped bleeding, and new teeth slid into place as she smirked at Buffy. "You have a pretty voice," she said. "And I like your friends. Why don't you all come home with me?"

Buffy, to Giles' relief, lowered her fists. They could resolve this like peaceable people and then be...ahem, entertained by their host. (Afterwards, Eyghon assured him, he could abandon Giles' body for the quasi-dead Abyssal.) But before this "Enoby" could take Buffy's hand, the wounded messenger spun on the balls of his feet and drove a blade glowing with green fire into the Abyssal's back. What was the matter with him? She was welcoming them!

The messenger faded into the background somehow while their hostess clawed at her back. She opened her mouth to scream again, and a bug flew into it, sending her into a coughing fit. Her mouth opened wider--wider--something was forcing it open from inside! The bug had become a cat; the cat became a small dog. "I knew an old lady who swallowed a fly," Buffy said heartlessly as the Abyssal clawed at her throat. "I guess she'll die." The dog became a wolf, tearing the Abyssal's jaw free. Her throat ripped open with a horrid noise and she collapsed. Eyghon chuckled at the sight.

The wolf rolled free, becoming a pretty blonde girl younger than Buffy and coated in gore. "Anja Silverclaws. Remember me? Good poem, Buffy. Where'd you hear it?"

"Nursery rhyme," Cordelia snapped. As she did so, the Abyssal's wound sealed up, but rather than attack them she grabbed hold of a spine chain and allowed it to carry her off.

"Well, as mortals, facing her was foolish," Anja said, "but it's nothing you haven't done before. Welcome to the resistance, I guess. You know Buffy, of course, but I don't think you've met--what? What is it?"

Buffy had removed her helmet. There was no doubt but that she was Buffy, but her hair was listless and showing signs of grey. Her face displayed faint wrinkles, and she was beginning to put on weight. "C'mon, Giles. It's all right. If I'm gonna be a Watcher, I have to look the part."

*****

Draining the lava was easier said than done. Buffy knew the chambers beneath the city best, but she was plainly sweltering in the heat and seemed powerless. Sam and Riley did their best to hold the glowing rock back, but it was already overflowing the lowest parts of the city. Sam began to cough in the toxic fumes, and Buffy's gas mask, while effective, was crude and chafing. Thaan and Feyrendahl regarded them suspiciously as newcomers; most Terrestrials were no friends of Buffy's regime, apparently.

Buffy had found some sort of handheld energy weapon; though the ancient devices were vanishingly rare, the Despot ruled one of the wealthiest nations in existence, and the most dependent on trade. With it she helped Sam blast out holes in the crater wall. Thaan and Riley widened them, while Feyrendahl held lava back from everyone while they worked. After thirty grueling minutes, the lava began to subside...and something else attacked.

They weren't much alike--a great lumbering beast of scorching black rock, a humanoid surrounded by biting sand, a flickering flame with arms and legs--but they had the same signature of heat and flame. "Demons," Riley muttered, but Thaan shook her head.

"These are Fair Folk," she said. "They come from the Wyld. I'm surprised you don't know the difference."

"We don't know a lot of things about this place," Sam said. "I'd love to have you teach us." She shot a lizard creature through the eye, but it didn't drop until Feyrendahl slid a blade into its gut.

"We may not even be facing more than one," he said. "These things can warp reality all out of shape, even to the point of conjuring legions."

"Sounds like a useful ability to have," Riley said. "Like this, maybe?" The dust and volcanic ash left around them swirled into smoky figures that surrounded the group.

Thaan snickered faintly. "Indeed, in many ways. But theirs are more solid." Some of the Fair Folk quailed and fled, but most remained. "Don't take this to mean they really feel fear. The raksha mimic emotion, no more."

"So why did they run?" Sam asked. A warrior made from ashes exploded when her bullet passed through his torso, littering theground with white-grey dust.

Thaan shrugged. "They are utterly mad. Why even ask?"

*****

"Let me get this straight," Ahn-Aru grumbled. "As much as half the Chayan population is outside Chaya, when Chayans almost never leave."

"Yes," Xochichem said sulkily.

"Not merely outside Chaya, but preparing to invade Thorns while the bulk of its military is away."

"Yes," the strange god repeated.

"Because you sent them there, in violation of heavenly law. Why?"

Xochichem rotated in mid-air, revealing a green brand on one of his geometric faces. "Because I have been threatened with agony if I do not."

"By this 'Infernal Exalt'. Like Buffy Summers." She was going to get to the bottom of this mess!

"I do not know a Buffy Summers, but Cearr identified himself as an Infernal Exalt, a Green Sun Prince, and a Slayer." Something whirred mechanically beneath his image.

"What did he hope to accomplish?"

"His goal, he said, was to defeat the Mask of Winters on Malfeas' behalf. He can then present himself as a savior to the Scavenger Lands. Moreover, as the only human ever to control the Chayan 'hordes', he has an unshakable military advantage."

"How do you have this much power over the Chayans?"

"Jupiter has forbidden me to reveal that information, even to the Exalted. You could pry it out of me, but I do not recommend that."

No, if the Maiden of Secrets had put the information on the banned list, extorting it out of a god wouldn't please her. "What if I told you to stop?"

"You have that power," Xochichem grumped. "But I would then report you to the Convention on Deathlords as having aided the Mask of Winters."

"You wouldn't dare!" Ahn-Aru spat.

Xochichem wobbled as if shaking his head. "I would not dare do otherwise. I am under tight constraint. Moreover...can you deny it would be true?"

Ahn-Aru squeezed her eyes shut. She never signed up for this! "No, it would undoubtedly be true, if that were all I did. Carry on. I will notify you when I have an alternative." And what that was going to be, with the Terrestrials in disarray, she had no idea.

*****

"Egogy's real title is the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes," Buffy explained. "She's a whore. Sorry, Giles. I'm not trying to put her down, I mean it literally. She was dying of STDs when the Mask of Winters Exalted her. I tracked the info down because she really didn't seem that into death and all."

"You think she can be persuaded?" Wesley asked.

"Not any more," Buffy said regretfully. "She's not a true believer, we might get her to be in it for herself instead of the Mask, but...she's kind of toxic. She screws up any group she's part of, because...well, she screws any group she's part of."

"Ew," said Cordelia. Anja stared at her for a moment, then shook her head sadly. "So she really gets around, then?"

"Very," Anja said, sounding irritated. "And she enjoys using her powers to create dissension, even when it's counterproductive, which I happen to consider more important than the method she uses. Honestly she's more use to us where she is."

Peleps Kolohi's head entered the living wooden hut. "Friends, perhaps you should leave the shelter. You should see the problem we face."

Wesley emerged first, and indeed it was eminently clear: a huge red cloud now blotted out half the sky, and huge drops of bloody rain were falling from it. "We've got a powerful necromancer on the enemy side," Buffy warned. "Nobody's sure who it is, but I figure it's the Seven-Degreed Physician of Black Maladies. He runs the Mask's necrotech operations, too."

"He hasn't got time for that," Anja said. "He's got to be running day and night keeping the war machines running."

"Well, it certainly isn't Typhon," said the slender Terrestrial standing outside the hut. "He hasn't been seen in days. They say he's off on a diplomatic mission to the Blessed Isle and its pretenders."

"Give over, Gido," Anja said. "You've made your choice to stand with us against the Mask; why quibble over the Realm?"

"The Dragons will ensure that the Mask of Winters is defeated in his time, if we stand true," said Gido, folding his hands piously. "When that is done, we will have you minor Anathema to deal with, yes, but you will fall quickly. No offense; I know you are deceived by evil spirits that you are in the right. Then the age-old conflict will resume between the rightful heirs of the Shogunate and the Empress' brood of usurpers. We must be in the best position possible for that."

Kolohi shrugged this off. "Bygones," she said. "It may be Falling Tears Poet. All we can be sure of is that it's not the Lady--she's far too dense for mystic arts--or the Maiden. All she cares about is blood on her blade."

Everyone nodded to that.

*****

The tent flap fluttered open and the Maiden with the Mirthless Smile emerged, clutching her bundle. "Shh," she whispered. "Be calm. All suffering ends in time."

Falling Tears Poet frowned and edged slowly away from the doorway. This was exceedingly odd behavior. "What have you got there?"

"It is an infant," the Maiden snapped. "I...intend to sacrifice it to the Neverborn, or perhaps allow the Physician to make use of it. His creations amuse me."

That would have been very like the Maiden...if she had sounded at all sincere, and if a cringing girl had not followed her out of the tent. "Nurse it," the Maiden snapped. "It requires food." The teen nodded fearfully and snatched it away. "Bring it back safely. I...I can't have a spoiled sacrifice." Again, that disturbing lack of honesty. Why?

"Is that her mother?" the Poet asked.

"A wet nurse," the Maiden explained. "She seems to take some comfort in feeding this child. No doubt it relieves the pressure."

"No doubt." The Poet considered questioning her further--she seemed in a better mood than was usual--but then the Lady of Darkness came trotting down the hill, which certainly meant the moment had passed.

"One Blood Monsoon successfully conjured," the Lady said. "I think I like this spell."

"Congratulations," the Maiden said without the irony that would normally accompany such a comment. "I should not have called you useless last time we spoke. Your skill at necromancy has grown immensely."

Quite understandably, the Lady froze. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What I said," the Maiden answered, a little more harshly, and stalked off.

 _She is taking care of a baby and lying about it,_ the Poet informed the Lady. _I cannot fathom what she is up to._

 _What the hell? I could tell something is up, but that? Don't worry, I'll get her in bed and find out._ The Lady made a scoffing noise. _I figure she's caught Drunken Moth Sickness or something like that._

"Hmm," the Poet said aloud. "Something of that nature is surely required."

******

Prudence flung up an arm uselessly as the fireball arced at her. It singed her sleeve and vanished. "You're out of luck," she told Petersen. "There just aren't any more of these Exaltations loose. I wish there were."

Petersen nodded and pointed toward the door. "I don't understand what your destiny is, but I guess it's something else. I have to get back to the front."

"I understand," Prudence said, and wandered out of the room. All this trouble to rescue them, and here it was coming to nothing in the end.

The door at the end of the room opened, and a girl stepped through, a plump blonde in a comfy-looking sweater. She gave Prudence one look and said, "Come with me if you want to live."

"Nice joke," Prudence grumbled, unamused, "if you'd made it a few years ago."

"I'm absolutely serious," the girl said, and her body rippled and turned coal-black, her face reshaping into something like a skull. "You can come along, or I can kill you right here."


	8. From Beneath You

"And that's how Frodo saved the world," Buffy finished.

Mnemon grumbled a bit to herself. "A month ago I'd have laughed and said there was no wonder your world had no Exalted. But after seeing what one ring of power can do in the wrong place, I'm less inclined to scoff."

Buffy nodded and looked up. After literally going down the drain, they'd ended up in the Malfean sewers, basically. Such was the story of her life. The boat was speeding through a pipe so big it had tenements dangling from the top towards the acidic "water". Not exactly prime real estate. The Green Sun somehow dangled ahead of them even though the pipe shrank to a point in the distance ahead and behind.

Mnemon started to make another remark, then pointed ahead. A radeken was winging its way toward them, dodging inhabited stalactites. "Don't they usually spend their time as clouds?"

"Usually," Buffy began, but then silver symbols flared to life on the demon's hide. "Tara''s being an overachiever again."

"Good for her," Mnemon said drily.

Buffy considered flying out to meet her, then thought better of it. Tara would probably be tired after her hunt. Radeken were no easy prey. The catlike beast pulled up and skidded to a stop on the deck next to her. This new form had the rank mammalian smell Buffy was familiar with; she could see muscles twitch on Tara's flanks. Buffy leaned on her, taking comfort in her sisterly presence. Even Sineya rumbled a purr in Buffy's head, and radeken were hardly social creatures. 

Not that long ago, if she could have been a radeken, Tara would have transformed back as soon as possible. Now she lingered, stretching her muscles. Buffy took comfort in that; if Tara could come to terms with having a demonic side, she surely could as well. If Buffy was honest with herself, she had to admit that most of her misgivings had faded. Her duplicates were an anchor to her psychological humanity, and as long as she kept the ability to care about humans and human things, she felt that it would all be okay. Being superhuman on top of that, well...that was gravy.

Eventually Tara melted back into her human form, wearing a small bikini. Of course, she could manifest just about anything she wanted to wear these days. She gave Buffy a quick hug. "No obvious trouble ahead," she said, "but if Kimbery has it in for you that could change any time without warning."

"We'll be ready for it," Buffy said, "but hopefully even Kimbery has enough self-preservation not to let the Neverborn win." That was a real big "hopefully" there.

"I'm going to head belowdecks and meet up with Willow and Fred. They said they thought they could map Malfeas out as a six-dimensional hypersphere." Tara tilted her head and looked out over the sea. "I'm not convinced that wouldn't give the Yozis access to alternate timelines where they won."

"It does," Buffy said, "but Oramus and maybe Gan are the only ones who touch those, and they're stumbling around blind. At least, Oramus is. I should maybe make sure Gan is bound tightly enough when I get a chance. You want me to join you?"

Tara blushed crimson. No, this wasn't really a meeting about maps and geometry. "N-not right now, B-Buffy, but I'll mention it to them."

"When you get a free moment," Buffy teased. Yeah, Tara was definitely in a double-H mood. Or maybe only single-H, since she'd been hunting. Tara kissed her on the forehead and vanished through the hatch.

"You take this all so casually," Mnemon said. "The Mask of Winters might end the world before we ever get to Lookshy."

Buffy nodded. "He might. I'm not used to the large-scale army stuff. Most of my apocalypse...es..es have been the weapon of magical mass destruction sort. But if he's got to finish what he's doing, we have a little time."

"What if he just needs something in the area?" Mnemon suggested. "Or what if the war is a distraction?"

Buffy thought that over. "Then there's no point getting worked up about it, and we may as well get a room."

Mnemon barked a laugh and took Buffy's hands. "I won't argue with that."

**Chapter 98--From Beneath You**

"She's losing it," said the Lady of Darkn--who was she kidding? She answered to the title the Mask had given her, and ignored her old name, but within her own mind she was still Rose Petals Parted. "She's obsessed with the brat."

The Physician frowned and peered around the tent flap. "I see what you mean. She's been asking me about keeping an infant healthy. As bad, she's begun talking about misgivings regarding pain and killing. She's begun experiencing guilt."

"Isn't that impossible?" The Lady tried not to let her eyes bug out as the Maiden tossed the baby into the air and caught her.

"Mortally speaking, yes, very much so." The Physician consulted a little black book from the pocket of his coat. "The Maiden is a congenital sociopath. She feels none of the emotions we do--not even anger or hatred, really. The most she might be said to experience are irritation and pleasure, though in certain situations those can be very intense. She has no empathy whatsoever." He broke off in dismay as the Maiden began to tickle under the baby's chin, making it laugh and laughing along with it. "Of course, we Exalted have been known to do the impossible, but I can't fathom any motive...hold on. I'm a fool."

"I'm sure she agrees," Rose said, "but why?"

"That's not a human child," the Physician said. "It's a raksha. It must intend to feed on her dreams. Very well camouflaged; I've been observing them on and off for a day now."

"So she stayed to cuddle this morning because she's being manipulated by the Fair Folk?" That had been the most disconcerting experience Rose had ever had with a client. The Maiden fucked infrequently and to relieve a kind of discomfort, not out of love or even what most people would call lust. But this morning, Rose had awoken after a session to find the other woman's head pillowed on her belly.

"Undoubtedly. I suspect this one means to milk her for horror. She's certainly never experienced it before. No doubt the 'child' finds her delicious." The Physician closed his mouth abruptly as Falling Tears Poet approached.

"The Mask of Winters wants us to divert back to Thorns and deal with an army while the Judge presses on. Not a tactic I would choose, but he was certain." The Poet gave a sardonic smile; perhaps he had asked questions. The Mask must have gotten pissy. "Have you figured out what's the matter with her or how to fix it?"

"Raksha," said Rose, at the same moment that the Physician grumbled, "No. Just killing it will do nothing to rebreak her, and likely will anger her immensely."

"Can _you_ rebreak her?" Falling Tears Poet asked Rose. He had a little respect for her, at least.

"Maybe," she told him. "I have to be sure I can break her the right way."

"Best try soon," the Poet muttered. The Maiden kissed the baby on its chubby cheeks. "Very soon."

*****

Waves of force shifted here, there, and everywhere as Amy and her mother struggled. Piper did the only thing that made sense to her--she hid behind a couch.

"You're still new at this, Mom," Amy snarled. "You don't know what we're capable of." Blue lightning crackled from her hands, and all Catherine had to swat it aside with was the same golden-white force. Fire followed, then a barrage of cutting sand.

"I know enough," Catherine shot back, but Piper couldn't see her counterattack. Faith suddenly had Piper by the throat.

"You coward," Faith growled. "Whoever gave you the power wasted it." She bore down on Piper's trachea. Piper beat at Faith's arms, but the Solar's grip was like steel, and her vision began to grey. Unable to break free, Piper went on the offensive, and desperately seized Faith's neck in response. Faith tightened the muscles there, but that only notified Piper she was having some effect. She dragged Faith closer and instinctively closed her jaws, sinking teeth into the younger woman's neck, then clubbed her in the face with her freed hands. Faith was blasted free of her bite, throat trailing blood and tissue, and Piper stood up, catching herself on the couch as she swayed.

Catherine's glare slid past her as a burst of force slammed into Amy. This one carried with it a slimy, multicolored residue, and Amy staggered when it struck her, then slid to the floor. Piper stifled a gasp; Amy's legs had collapsed into boneless tentacles that writhed on the floor but were unable to support her weight. "Damnit, Faith!" Amy screamed. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"You're wasting your time," Catherine sneered. "She's not capable of loving herself right now, let alone you. You're hardly lovable in any case, you useless lazy child."

"I am not a child any more," Amy snapped, as Faith slammed into Piper again. "I'm better than you in every possible way."

"Faith," Piper tried, since Amy was obviously distracted, "why are you letting this...harridan control you? I thought you were tougher than that." Faith didn't strike her as a particularly controllable person. Of course, Amy's mother had her drugged, but surely there was some way--

Faith's fist drove into Piper's midsection and forced the wind out of her. No. She couldn't let Faith kill her, especially not when it wasn't even really Faith who wanted it. There had to be-- Faith slammed her across the path of Catherine's attack; the other woman barely noticed, just adjusted her aim.

Faith wasn't her enemy. She shouldn't be fighting Faith, except in immediate self-defense. Piper lay still, eyes open but unfocused, and feigned death. She felt her breathing stop, and even her heart slowed almost to nothing. Faith turned away, focusing on Amy, and vanished from her field of vision before it could fade to grey. Piper's hand closed on a broken fragment of table leg. She came up with it in a flash of motion, the leg flew at Catherine, and...she deflected it with a wave of her hand. "I see I've neglected you," she muttered, and flung a wave of force at Piper.

Piper fumbled for another leg, but this one was still attached to the table, and her hand came up with nothing at all. The nothing slammed into Catherine's wave of force with a burst of sparks. What the heck was that? Piper pretended to herself that she had a knife, or a grenade, and flung the imaginary weapon at Catherine, who was still staring at her in confusion.

The explosion struck the witch and sent her flying into the wall. Too stunned to press the attack, Piper recoiled for a moment, and Catherine rose, teeth bared. She sent another wave of toxic force at Piper, but now she had her stride, and another explosion of sparks blocked it. With a shriek of rage, Catherine lunged forward...directly into Faith's dagger. Faith twisted, blood gushed from the wound, and Catherine sank to the ground, unmoving.

"Crap," Amy cursed. "I could use a hand here. Is she dead?"

"Like you care," Faith began, but Amy clipped her on the temple with a bolt of electricity, and she went down.

"I think so?" Piper wavered. She made her way unsteadily over to the body and rolled it over. "She's either dead or a heck of a faker."

"Not her style," Amy admitted. "I just wish I'd gotten to take her out personally, but right now I need help." The younger witch began dragging herself over. She still had wings, but getting airborne was going to be a problem; her legs had been reduced to useless ropes of flesh. "Get me into Faith's car. Then Faith, if she doesn't wake up and attack again. We've got serious problems that you two haven't gotten to hear about yet."

"More serious than your mom?"

Amy inhaled deeply. "Woo, boy. Yep."

*****

"Here it comes," Renjin said. The fields around Lookshy were already deserted save by the dead and the heavily-armed. Seventh Legion forces braced themselves, backs to the wall. If this became a simple siege, there would be Deathknights over the walls in no time.

Spine chains scurried across the barren expanse, carrying key troops in bony shells, war ghosts, and one strikingly blonde Abyssal with a reverse skunk stripe. Peleps Kolohi shifted into her war form, drawing nervous glances from the soldiers. Stranger war machines were stumbling forward in the background--something spiderlike, something like a huge golem, something that...oh, crap, was that Juggernaut itself? But of course the Mask would bring his citadel against Lookshy, his great enemy. If other measures failed, he'd set it on the city and that would likely be that.

Renjin missed Dreamer-of-Reason. She had a knack for crazy devices and crazier plans. But the odds of her opening a portal under the Maker of Rubble's feet were low, to say the least; she was off in the West dealing with the Silver Prince. They were going to have to handle this one without her.

Renjin raised a hand. He had talked the General Staff into this and now he was stuck with the command post. "Prepare to fire on that Abyssal on my command. If she's hit, _immediately_ fire on that spidery thing. Don't wait." Rumor had it that the scuttler was some sort of linchpin device, and Anja had confirmed it had something to do with distributing power to the army.

There was no sign of the Judge, and that worried him. Why call back the monster that had slaughtered a good quarter of the Confederation's armies? "Ready, aim..." Of course, the Maiden with the Mirthless Smile was no slouch either. Her steed leapt forward, suddenly faster than a galloping horse. "Fire!"

Everything from implosion bows to frog-crotch arrows launched at that single target on his command, forming a rough circle around her position and limiting her ability to get away. A burst of energy struck home, shattering her bony ride, and broadheads and hurled knives perforated her body.

She didn't fall. She took a stumbling step backward as she landed, and that was all. Then she gestured, and the oncoming monstrosities returned fire with a barrage of catapult loads. Renjin narrowed his eyes. "Abort! Target those projectiles!"

There was barely an instant of hesitation. Light implosion bow shots and personal bolts from the Dragon-Blooded began blasting zombie clusters out of the sky before they could land among the troops or, worse, arc over the walls. To Renjin's gratification, less-powerful arrows curled up to barrage the spider-thing, though the damage they did was evidently slight.

Then the Maiden tore into the troops, and he saw that the catapults had been the diversion. Even Celestial Exalts would flounder before a Terrestrial war machine, true. But the Maiden was backed by a war machine of her own, undead monsters that chewed their way through the ranks nearly as fast as she did, and she was herself an engine of devastation. Even Dragon-Blooded heroes fell before her relentless blade.

Fortunately for Lookshy, today the Terrestrial host was not fighting alone. Renjin began to signal the bigger guns. With a roar of rage, the Jade Wave leapt from the battlements. Further to his left, Renjin heard Karal Fire Orchid's battle cry, "For life and Lookshy!", and on his right the Sage of the Deep began to incant some terrible war curse. Further on his right...hey, who the hell was that on a swift rider? That wasn't authorized at all.

Heads were going to roll, armor of light or not.

*****

The Maiden with the Mirthless Smile made bloody art of the troops, carving them like stone with her blade. "This is life, little one," she said to the babe cradled inside her modified breastplate. "Blood and screaming and pain." The infant looked up at her reproachfully. "Well, yes, I'm concentrating it, but it comes soon or late."

That was the Physician's philosophy, and the Poet's, and likely the Disciple's. The Lady of Darkness had her own tale about everything that made life worth living just speeding death along, but whether she really believed that was hard to say, and anyway all she really enjoyed was sex and drugs.

Until yesterday the Maiden hadn't needed a philosophy. Killing was fun, and that had been enough. What was happening to her? Today she was keeping her art minimalist, killing with as little effort and as little pain as possible, and yet she still--

She leapt even before she knew what was coming at her, transforming a ram attack into a clever mount. Some fool in armor that looked sculpted from white light had tried to hit her from the back with a swift rider. She couldn't see much of his face..."Oh. You. Didn't think to see you again." This man had been peripherally involved in the debacle with that...well, she was some sort of Exalt and had been spirited off before the Maiden could kill her.

"You've got a friend of mine's little sister there," he said, hefting a shining axe. 

"Oh. Is that all? She looked abandoned to me." Hadn't there been something about this group having been disconnected from Fate? As if they'd entered the world from somewhere else? The Mask of Winters had said...but the thought kept sliding away. The Maiden jammed a dagger through it, so to speak, and pinned it to the table. "Wait. Is she...this is...." The raksha. The girl who'd bent her mind, not once but _twice_ , though the first time she had failed in her goals.

"Dawn Summers," the man said. "Don't want her any more? I'll take her off your hands."

The Maiden lifted the infant out of her cradle strap. "No concern of yours. I'll just toss her aside." The baby giggled up at her, seemingly uncomprehending. But of course she understood. It was some sort of plot, some.... She dangled the baby over the side while the man clutched for it. Just release her grip... Why couldn't she do it? It wasn't really...but it was just...a baby. And when had she ever cared about a baby before?

"Having trouble?" the man asked. "You don't look like someone who has much trouble with killing. To be fair, I don't either, if I got a reason."

He had grown up in some slum, she discerned. He thought that made them alike. But why should he care if they were alike, unless...? The thought made her snicker. He was trying to reach her, trying to find some buried trace of humanity or compassion, and of course she had none...she....

Why was she still holding the baby? The swift rider was careening past the battle lines, slipping under or past all manner of attacks in flight.

It was a plot. They were trying to undermine the Mask's plans, that was all. If somehow they got through to her...the Mask of Winters would hurl her Monstrance into the Well of Oblivion and destroy her. Useless. But did they know that?

She found, without warning, that she was handing him the baby. "Take care of her. Thank you for trying." She bared her teeth. "But really now, why would you bother?"

"If the Deathlords kill the world," the man said reasonably, "you'll die too. You hate yourself that much?"

She burst into cold laughter. "You know nothing about me," she said, and leapt off the vehicle, kicking it toward the Abyssal lines. A pity. He wasn't bad looking. He might have been good to fuck.

She landed on her feet in the shallow mud and set herself to face the approaching Exalts. They had more sense; they would merely seek to kill her. And since she had no desire to die....

When the world was dead, then what? What would she do then? What would be left to kill? She wasn't made for introspection like this. What was the _matter_ with her?

Sword clashed against the turtle-Lunar's shell. She wanted the child back. Talking to it had been...been...fun?

By the Abyss, she was losing her mind!

*****

Tara blushed furiously. "Okay, Anya, I admit it. It's fun."

Anya grinned. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

"I don't think it's a secret," Tara admitted. "My mind doesn't change, only my body, and I don't actually get the demon's powers. But...you're right that before I'd never have done this, and I would've thought these shapes were icky. How did the scanner work?"

Anya frowned uneasily. "I don't remember what I did during just a little chunk of my life, maybe a decade or so. Doesn't seem like much, except it's from 1935 to 1945. I don't like not being sure what I was doing then."

Tara considered that. "Could have been something really bad. I guess in principle it could have been good, too, but vengeance demons don't go in for that, do they?"

"I've never said anything about causing World War II, have I?" Anya squirmed at the idea. "Good work is one thing, but...that's a little much."

Tara inhaled deeply. "No, but you might have been afraid Willow would hurt you. I think maybe the idea is that you don't know." She studied Anya's pained expression. "To be honest, I think maybe it's good for you."

Buffy banged the door open. "Am I late? We're going to be making a quick stop at my mansion in an hour or so."

"Then no," Tara said. "Not if you've been good about studying. Ready to try and counter my spells?"

Buffy and Anya nodded together. "Let's do this," Buffy said.

*****

Drusilla slipped through the ruined streets of Washington DC like a mouse. Like a cockroach. Like a determined, stealthy Slayer. Quietly. She was good at sneaking when she wanted to be. The horrid golem people had killed most everyone who lived here, but there were signs that some had escaped. Certainly Grandmum and Lilah had.

She had the disturbing feeling that safety was getting further and further away. She needed a car, and cars were unpleasant things, smelly and noisy. Or even a horse. Horses weren't so bad, especially not to the living. She _was_ living now, wasn't she?

The genie box still rested in her pocket, waiting for her to play Aladdin. Or Pandora. But she couldn't rub it here. She needed to hurry and find Grandmum.

With an irritable sigh, she opened the door of a lonely car. She was stealing, and stealing was wrong. But letting the golem people kill everyone was also wrong. It was a dilemma.

"Halt!" Drusilla sighed. Someone had found her again. These golem people were so clever and persistent, and they were outside Fate, which gave them an adv...wait a moment. That was something she could try. She turned. "Champion? I'm sorry I didn't recognize you." The illusion of a gem on her brow felt strange.

"I need...I need transport. Can you help me?"

The golem person studied her carefully. "Where are you trying to go? I don't think we've met."

Drusilla nodded. "I am Prognosticator of Inclement Design, and I have been set to find the leader of this nation. She dwelt here but has fled from our offensive."

"Assassin, huh? I certainly won't get in your way. Come with me and I'll find you a Windblade. Starmetal caste? It's a long way, but I'm sure you'll manage. I'm Beneficent Sanguine Messenger, and...I'm a little new at this."

Drusilla frowned. The golem woman seemed familiar. That was impossible, surely. "May you come with me?"

"I don't see why not. You're on legitimate business. We'll go together."


	9. Mission Impossible

Colonel O'Neill took a seat across from the President. He wasn't entirely sure he was supposed to, but it was Armageddon and there were plenty of seats left. If the brass got mad he could always stand. It wasn't as if the whole Cabinet were here. The Veep, Brucker, was right next to Morgan, of course, and on her other side was the new acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a General Hammond. Then the acting Secretary of Defense, with O'Neill next to him, and up the other side some civvie Cabinet members he didn't recognize. Likely to be acting replacements, too; D.C. was a disaster area, with tens of thousands dead or missing.

"Elephant in the room," O'Neill said, interrupting Brucker. "Superpowers. Where do they come from?"

"That's above your--" Brucker began, but the President shushed her.

"He needs to know. The Exaltations are in a box in a White House subbasement. They were retrieved from beneath Sunnydale, California." Lilah reshuffled her thin folder. "No, they can't be freed with the technology available in the White House. I made sure that was kept off site after an incident with the Chief of Staff."

"Wait," O'Neill said. "You're not joking? The source of the superheroes is in the White House? We're making them? Why haven't we activated all these 'Exaltations' and kicked some invading ass?"

Hammond spoke up. "There are some serious problems, Colonel. The Exaltations are alien technology that can't be fully controlled. Even if they don't betray us somehow, it was vital to national security that they not be spread evenly around the globe."

"Surely that's changed, sir." The way things stood, he'd give superpowers to Saddam Hussein before he'd let them sit in a jar, but he didn't say that.

"It's changed," the President said, "but we don't have easy access to the box now. Someone has to retrieve it and recreate the equipment to use it."

"Well, that was bad planning." Hammond and Brucker glared at him.

"In retrospect," Lilah said, "yes it was. It's an unanticipated problem and now we're paying for the mistake. Colonel, you interested in leading a commando raid into the capital of your own country? You'd be in command of a team of superheroes, and not many people can say that."

The colonel raised his eyebrows. "You really know how to give a guy _exactly_ what he wants."

**Chapter 99--Mission Impossible**

Drusilla set her feet carefully on the board. This was not a mode of travel she would choose. Perhaps it would allow her to catch a train. The starmetal hoverboard lifted into the air with her.

"Yours has no weapons," Beneficent Sanguine Messenger warned. "Mine will at least sprout blades."

"Shan't need them," Drusilla said. "It's written in the stars."

"Do I know you?" Messenger asked. "You seem familiar."

"Prognosticator" shook her head, tasting deeply of the golem girl's essential being. "Once upon a time," she lied. It was impossible, after all, for this girl to be Daddy.

It was never Daddy.

*****

Peleps Kolohi was a dead woman. She could see it in the Maiden's eyes. Sure, she was a Full Moon; the Maiden was a Deathknight Dawn...a Dusk, so to speak. Kolohi could do anything; the Maiden could do more.

That wasn't enough to make her give up. She brought her scaly fists down on the Maiden's skull like a club. The Abyssal didn't even stagger, though her riposte likewise failed to penetrate Kolohi's shell. This fight was already running long, though.

There was a move she'd heard of in stories, about the ancient Lunar Terrakun. Kolohi opened her mouth wider than any human could, leaned forward to engulf the Maiden's head, and bit down. Her beak met the collar of the Maiden's breastplate and halted. Crap. Soulsteel. Yeah, her time was up.

The Maiden stiffened as Kolohi released her. "But," she said distractedly, "you need...I'm sorry. All right." A phantom horse galloped up, and she leapt astride it, leaving Kolohi to stare after her. What had that been about?

*****

Harmony flexed her mecha-arms--this was a look she could rock!--and slammed the spider-craft into the concrete piling. This was no ordinary transport. Alchemical avatars poured out of the spider and swarmed over her armor. "Kate!"

"Busy here!" Kate shouted, firing her revolver and swinging a captured...did she have a lightsaber? Seriously?...at a group of three other Alchemicals, who hopefully were their own people and not just someone's avatar body. Those things were a pain in the butt. Kate kept shooting. She didn't need to reload any more these days, which was handy. "Where's Shoat?"

"Here!" Shoat called. "They have no idea the mistake they've made." She was riding on the shoulders of a zomBorg, with a...a hell of a lot of zombies behind her, some Borgized and at least as many not. The Alchemicals turned to face them as the thing Harmony was grappling with suddenly extended miniature pincers into her armor and tried to cut her throat open. "We're going to kick butt and take names, and I'm all out of names!"

"Is that so?" asked a heavily-accented voice. Kate's eyebrows would've climbed into her bangs if she wasn't half bear right now. "I'm ba-ack!"

"So the invaders have sent Ahnold after us?" Harmony bit the pincers off and spat them out. That was gross! "I'm so scared! I'm shaking!"

"You should be," Ahnold said, striding forward over the rubblized highway. He seized the spider-colossus by one leg and dragged it away from her. "I am the Dread Gear. I am the Minister of Wrath. I am the Viator of Nullspace. Your powers derive from my oversoul, Autochthon, for he designed them, and I...I know them better than you all."

Harmony yawned. "Everyone get clear," she called out, knowing she sounded bored. The Viator grabbed her by the leg, but she disabused him of his stupid conceit by picking him up and charging away down the bank. "We're outatime, everybody!"

The armor was finally starting to shake again, and she knew what that meant. Well, no more energy pumped in. The Viator or whatever he was regarded her with amusement as she came to a halt knee-deep in the bay. The trembling rose to a crescendo, and at last Harmony's mecha erupted in a blast of noise and fire that sent superheated bay steam in every direction.

Harmony dropped into the water. Drat! She'd forgotten this part! Now she was floundering in the bay without her armor. But the rough seas quickly deposited her on the grubby, rocky beach. "Scratch one Gear," she quipped.

"Indeed but a scratch," came the voice of Ahrnie. Blargh. The Viator came striding out of the water, skin torn and scorched to reveal his metal frame and one red eye. Very classic. "It was a valiant effort. Doomed, however." Harmony made a move to attack, and the Viator seized her by the throat and lifted. "Shall you now stand in my way? I. Think. Not."

Crunch. Grind. A blade drove into his back. "Put her down, asshole," Shoat growled.

The Viator let out a small sigh. Gears ground uselessly, so he reached one hand around and wrenched the blade loose, his hand atop Shoat's, then raised her into the air, dangling. "Soulsteel. Generally indestructible. But far from a sufficient weapon, child. Now the Exaltations themselves...they are the ultimate weapon. _Completely_ indestructible. Still...not enough to easily slay such as myself. Hasta la vista, baby." He flung Shoat into the surf and met Harmony's eyes. "You. Yours is pure and undamaged. The first I have seen. It requires testing. I hope you enjoy pain."

Harmony spat in his face. The saliva crackled and boiled away. And then, in a rush of violet lightning, so did they.

*****

"You sure you don't need to detox?" Amy rested comfortably at Faith's side her newly-restored legs wrapped around her girlfriend.

"I'm detoxed," Faith insisted. "I'm not tryin' to strangle you, am I? I'm not even trying to strangle Pipefitter back there." Piper dangled from Faith's other hand; both of them clung tightly, but Piper had declined a more secure perch, saying she felt uncomfortable taking as intimate a posture as Amy's. There wasn't that much danger; Faith was boosting her flight ceiling by hovering aboard a military transport plane. A regular human might go skidding off, but Amy and Piper shouldn't. 

"Wouldn't it be safer to ride inside the plane?" Piper called.

"Safer, sure," Faith agreed. "But this way we inspire 'em. They've got bona-fide superheroes on their side an' they can't forget it. An' no, it's too late for me to let just you go in, sorry."

They were probably somewhere over Saint Louis by now--yeah, there was the Mississippi coming up. So far the invasion was restricted to the East Coast--well, the main part anyway. There'd been reports of scouts, though, so they might not have long. Faith pulled out her cell. "Yo! Weatherby! Got any news for me?"

"Collins' contacts report new incursions in Moscow," the Council's man reported. "And scouts have penetrated Tokyo, where one of our...pardon, your agents neutralized them."

"Five by five," Faith said. "Good deal. Anything...whoa. Hang on, we've got trouble."

The Gateway Arch had just come into view, and it was living up to its name. A green vortex filled it, and something sleek and shiny was coming through. Something big.

*****

Carter lay in the darkness, unable to move, unable to speak. God, with the fuzz in her head she could barely think. The drone of the Neverborn drowned out what little coherent thoughts she could manage.

Do you yield? 

_Never!_ But the truth was that she was weakening. She tried to recite her oaths as a soldier and found only doubt and static. What if it was the only way out? What if she could do more good with the power than harm? The world was already being invaded no matter what she did.

The Neverborn roared mocking laughter, and, all unaware, gave her the strength to hang on a little longer.

*****

In midair, Drusilla was suddenly under attack.

She hovered above the Mississippi, balancing on her board, while all around her alien craft maneuvered against fighter jets and transport planes tried to push through a maze of explosions. Were she mortal she'd have been dead in an instant; as it was she swam in a sea of fear, unprotected save by her evasive magics.

Something tickled her ribs. Oh. She had forgotten that completely. Of course, it was a demon, or had been one. But then, so had she.

A missile arced her way, and her shadow arched up over her like a vast pair of wings. She swung them, and batted the missile aside. As the smoky fireball above her cleared, though, her shadow withered under the sunlight. That was going to make things difficult. Ah well. She could manage. Beneficent Sanguine Messenger frowned at her. "Where did you find that thing?" she asked. "I've never seen--"

She wasn't going to be able to hide much longer anyway. Drusilla let the golem-mask slide; then, after a moment's consideration, selected another uncanny image...a familiar one.

The Messenger stared at her illusory vampiric visage, shook her head, and then stared some more. "I...I know you. Drusilla?"

Drusilla stumbled and teetered on her windblade. The intonation... "Daddy? My, how you've...changed."

*****

The fool was circling back on his swift rider. Not only did he believe his words could affect her, he had no idea the Judge was approaching. The demon would burn him to ash in an instant. The Maiden spurred her steed on till it seemed even a phantom should wail in agony, and the man fell behind her. Spine chains were only the vanguard. She rode in amid beasts of all shapes and sizes, some nearly natural but undead, others assemblages of bone and rotting flesh that resembled no creature ever seen. There was even a wooden monstrosity crafted from dead Chaun and Pineys.

They should not make her feel so sick. Perhaps it was the odor. That must be it.

She reined her horse in and wheeled about. Here he was, the demon who had been sent in to clear the field. She envied him. She despised him, for he killed bloodlessly and in a mass. She lusted for him, at times. She leaned in and brushed his impassive lips with hers and....

She jerked away, hand over her seared lips. That had never happened before. She was _immune_! He scowled at her, opened his mouth, and she spurred her horse back to a gallop. No! It was impossible!

She galloped the rest of the way to Juggernaut and up its rotting back. Most thought the behemoth an undead thing, but in fact it was suspended at the edge of life and death by fate, unable to die. She had never pitied the creature before. She should not pity it now. At last she attained the Mask of Winters' citadel and dismissed her steed.

The Mask regarded her without compassion, which she was unbothered by; what bothered her was his disdain. "So. They've broken you after all. I thought I had a tool I could not lose."

"I serve you faithfully as ever," the Maiden protested.

"You've been rendered capable of mercy," the Mask said coldly. "Of pity. Perhaps even of _love_. I am not so readily fooled." He waved his hand, and an image rippled into being: the dark young man on the swift rider, rising high over the artillery, aiming for the Judge. "You've spared this one, twice within two hours, without orders or strategic consideration. If even you can go soft, whose betrayal should I fear next?"

"He's a fool," the Maiden insisted. "Why should I kill one who will kill himself? The Judge will make short work of him." Even as she spoke, hot lightning arced up from the Judge. It played around the man and his craft...and failed to ground, thwarted by his brilliant armor. "It hardly matters. He'll last seconds, at best."

"And in those seconds, who will gain a minute? And in that minute, who will gain ten? And in those ten, _what hero will cut the Judge down?_ Look at the boy. He knows this. He knows he will die."

"Your agents in the Bureau of Destiny have said he has none. You told me he wasn't worthy of consideration." The fool was making another run. He seemed to be trying to deplete the war machines' ammunition, which for the most part came from a finite supply of corpses.

"Indeed not. Yet destinies can change. At least I don't have to fear he'll earn an Exaltation. They're all currently embodied or in safe hands, and with any luck will remain so at least until the Judge hits those lines again. Did you think, perhaps, he was due for one? Is that why you spared him?" The Mask of Winters laughed like thunder and the impact of hail. "Never mind. I can't yet afford your death. But I will make you watch _his_."

*****

Something tore the air above Kate, and she looked up, expecting fighter planes streaking in. For all the good they'd do. The sky was already a mass of twisted contrails and the ground was already littered in wreckage, most of it American. The alien city still hovered over Manhattan, untouched for all she could see, while the Big Apple had huge bites out of it.

The jets werent streaking in. They were streaking _out_ , a pitiful handful of them compared to the forces that had engaged here. They vanished to the south, with only a few alien craft in pursuit. "No," Shoat said. "This is bad."

Kate's gut concurred, and then she saw why. Something else--not a bird and certainly not a plane--was speeding from the western horizon. Not Superman, either, or even one of his recent facsimiles. "Shoat! The water! Get in the water!"

It was an ICBM. Watching it, Kate saw something even worse. The alien craft were scattering. No one was trying to shoot it down.

Kate's eyes adjusted as she dove deeper, dragging Shoat with her. Even through the growing mass of water she heard a shriek that grew to a roar. Light burst overhead, and a wash of terrible heat, and a shockwave that struck the water and set it to spinning them over and over.

Without meaning to surface, Kate felt air surround her. A wave had flung her up as the water churned. She spun as she fell, and saw the plume rising from the alien city.

The _unharmed_ alien city.

It was over.

She hit the water and let herself sink.

*****

"You could let her go," Daniel Jackson said.

"He could," said his companion. "He will not. He is not called the Dread Gear for nothing." Thoughtful Executor held up his shackled hands. "We must break free."

The Viator laughed, a harsh and grating sound. Harmony stood slumped, her fingers clutching the bars of the cage the Viator had put her in, her face streaked with makeup and sweat, her hair limp. Even with no visible torture, it was plain that the cage was sapping her will to resist.

"I will understand the remaining mechanisms of the Exaltations," the Viator proclaimed. "I will break the last restrictions. And then I will ascend beyond all devas and all titans by _taking them for myself!_ "

It was madness. "Harmony," Daniel said. "Don't give in. Don't try to negotiate. You have to hang on. We'll get you out."

"I can't," Harmony wailed. "I give. I give! Just tell me what I have to do."

The Viator smiled. "You read the Necronomicon. You know _exactly_ what to do."

*****

The convoy was dissolving into furballs. Faith let Amy go; she caught the air with her wings and unleashed a burst of white fire at the nearest rotorcraft. Now she was only burdened with Pipecleaner here. "I'm going to drop you onto the wing of the transport," she said. "Don't fall off."

"What? Of course I'll fall off!"

"Don't." She'd killed Cathy Madison. She was better than she realized. Faith dropped her. Peeper landed on the wing, balanced precariously there for a moment...and stuck. She waved her hands, flinging a blast of nothing at a soaring Alchemical, who erupted in flame. Yep. Pepper was gonna be fine.

Faith wove through the disintegrating formations, slapping a stray missile into the colossus-craft, shoving one alien vessel into another. This was the life, adrenaline pumping through her veins and making her want to scream, to fuck, to kill. She spiraled around a hovering transport and set it to spinning wildly. There came another enemy Exalt on a goblin glider, and...hell no. "Dru? You swiped a hoverboard?" She was vamped out; that was impossible! Nah, never mind that. It was unexpected. Impossible was for wimps.

Drusilla sent a blade of shadow through the nearest enemy fighter's rotors, the friendly traitor on her right fired shoulder rockets at a cluster of enemy paratroopers, and Amy came banking lazily around to scream a shockwave at some gold-armored Borg who had jumped out of the super-transport at them. It was hella fun.

"Incoming flight," crackled a voice over her earpiece. "This is Colonel O'Neill bound for Deecee, but you look like you're in trouble. Need a hand?"

"Could use one, if you got the Hotshots! What's your objective?" Faith broke off low, peeling back until she could see the fighter wing escorting yet another transport plane.

"The box is in Deecee, President wants it back." Crap. What if the enemy already had the thing?

Drusilla skidded in close, holding up a cube with an outer layer like cracked glass. "Grandmum needs this."

"Colonel! We've got your pickup right here with the Chief of Staff!"

"Say _what_? Okay, dropping Hotshots." The transport's bay doors opened and Terrestrials wearing parachutes began spilling out. A couple even lit up and soared away from the plane, leaving trails of flame. The rest pulled their chutes and used their own personal thermals to head for the fight.

All but one. What was she--? "Grandmum!" Dru shrieked. Her shadow sprouted bat wings, and she gave the hoverboard a ferocious kick, sending it careening wildly through the battle toward the lone parachutist.

"Madam President, what the hell--?"

"Watch your language, officer. I'm carrying out my oath to defend the country against all enemies, foreign or domestic. I'd call this one foreign, don't you think?" The board shot below her and she caught it with her feet and jettisoned the chute. "And don't start talking about national security. We just hit that monster over NYC with a nuke and it was no go. We're in Independence Day territory, O'Neill. Every Exalt needs to be in the field. I can take it."

"Madam...oh, damn it all." The colonel turned sharp and dove into the fight from above, firing all guns. "Can we bust that thing open in the field?"

"Only by actually busting it," said the soulsteel-armored rogue. "And it's made of six different indestructible materials, so good luck." Faith stared at her a moment, then decided it was no use wondering how she was listening in.

"They say Autochthon made the Exaltations," Lilah mused. "Do you suppose he can free them? His...processes, I mean?"

The rogue Alchemical considered that. "This portal goes to the Pole of Smoke. It's full of recyclers that deal with the magical materials. It's worth a shot." She studied Lilah as if considering adding something, then didn't.

Lilah swooped by Drusilla, going misty as a hail of bullets shot through her, and grabbed the box from her. "Cover me, people, I'm going in."

"Has anyone considered how many rules of engagement that violates, letting the President of the United States take point in hostile territory?" O'Neill griped. "Never mind, I've got Air Force One's six." He peeled off and they vanished through the gateway.

"What do we do now?" Amy asked.

"Pray," said Drusilla. 

*****

"It's been a long road," Charles sang, "gettin' from there to here." No one could hear him, except maybe the Judge, who wouldn't get it. He missed a lot of things, and one tv show that had barely begun shouldn't have rated. "It's been a long time, but my time is finally near." Only a few bone arrows came at him this pass. It was time to go.

It'd been a promising show, though you never knew with Trek. "An' I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky." Maybe the writers had screwed it all up while he was gone. Maybe it was already canceled. "And they're not gonna hold me down no more, no they're not gonna change my mind." Maybe it'd be the first to break the seven-season barrier.

He'd never know.

Charles came about from his last turn. There was big, blue, and ugly. He'd make a straight run at the guy, bring his axe into play. "Cause I've got faith of the heart, I'm goin' where my heart will take me!"

The Judge would grab him, most likely, and if he still wouldn't burn at that range, rip him apart. Charles floored the gas, aiming right for the demon's ugly face. "I've got faith to believe I can do anything!"

Lightning arced all around him, raw demony energy that should have turned every drop of virtue in his blood to liquid fire, but his armor held. "I've got strength of the soul, no one's gonna bend or break me! I can reach any star!"

He shoved the steering yoke over, leaning way to the left. One good swing. Better make it meaningful.

"I've got faith..." Was that an echo? His voice was deep, but not as deep as that baritone, surely. The swift rider flipped back to the right. "...faith of the he-art!" His axe came up, light flaring even brighter all around him...shaped like the dashboard of his old pickup?

"What's that th--?"

His axe came down. Body parts flew in all directions. And Charles Gunn heard something he'd never thought to hear. The staccato syncopation of four hands, applauding.


	10. Heart of Darkness, Pillar of Light

"Oblivion take my mastery of the connection between life and death," Harmony said, breathlessly. "Oblivion devour it and scour my soul. And so I pledge my allegiance to the Engine of Extinction and all the Neverborn, may the Abyss swallow me whole, until the universe sinks into the pit of nothingness and all things end."

That was it, that was the spell no one had ever cast on _themselves_ before, since it was Void Circle. She'd done it. She tried to summon some vestige of pride at doing so many impossible things, but she felt full of ashes instead. Her caste mark flared brilliant gold for one last instant before guttering out, becoming a black pit to nowhere, seeping blood. A skeletal unicorn flared around her, black and midnight violet.

"Speak your name," the Viator boomed. So she did, but the words fell soundlessly into the pit below. "I dub you Dissonant Threnody Unheard in the Vacuum Beyond."

The Monstrance opened, and she toppled out, just catching herself on the lip of the pit below. "Okay," she murmured, "I can handle--" The Viator hauled her up by the scruff of the neck and thrust her back into the cage.

"Stage One complete," it intoned. "Just as my efforts to create Green Sun Princes from Solars always failed, so too have my efforts at Alchemical and Abyssal akuma. I suspect a problem with incompatible essence sources. And yet the link remains. Stage Two will comprise my attempt to transform an Abyssal into a Green Sun Prince. Then the circle will be complete and I can move on to my apex investigations with sufficient data to determine the nature of the species barrier."

"Do you...always...talk like that?" Harmony gasped. "How...do you know...this stupid crap?"

A steel hand slammed into her face and shoved her to the back of the cell. "Know this, Threnody: every weapon invented by the Great Maker has its own spirit, called a Destroyer, from the simplest daiklaive to the soulbreaker orb. Therefore ask yourself this question: what must the Destroyer be like that was spawned from the Maker's greatest weapon, the Exaltations themselves? Thus was born the tenth soul of Autochthon, the spirit of a weapon that can slay worlds entire. This is what I am, little noise. Yet he feared me and cast me into the Void. And so began my goal of vengeance. That is how I know."

"Rhetorical question," Harmony whimpered. "TMI." That was a lie, though.

There was no such thing.

**Chapter 100--Heart of Darkness, Pillar of Light**

Colonel O'Neill threaded the needle.

The Gateway Arch was big, but when you were flying a jet at about the speed of sound it wasn't exactly the broad side of a barn. "Good thing breaking rules is my greatest talent," the President answered him as he emerged on the other side.

The sky was gone. He was a couple hundred yards up, surrounded by yellow haze, with smoke clouds above and mountains of debris below. Somewhere up there, a great gunmetal dome was this place's ceiling. Sure, he had room to maneuver, but just the idea of a solid dome of a sky made him feel claustrophobic. And...yep, here they came, rotorcraft from technohell, firing energy cannons at him. He let loose a pair of missiles and snaprolled through the cluster, wings complaining at the excessive strain. "Where are these recycler things? Neither of us is going to last long out here."

Lilah skidded to a halt, her board up in front and caught in her left hand as projectile fire hurtled in front of her. "Down there in the pits," she said. "Those aren't mountain ranges so much as an eroded plateau. Look there."

Sure enough, at the bottom of a huge pit, he could see some sort of smokestack belching fumes. The scale was too immense to easily make sense of. Then he saw the contrails passing between himself and the facility below, the humans below him reduced to ants or even less. "Okay," he muttered. "First we have to fight our way down through several levels--"

"Or," Lilah said, "we could just do this." Hovering high above the smokestack, she let the cube fall into what was presumably a vast, superhot furnace far below.

The cube dropped hundreds of feet, straight and true...and was caught by a hero shining in golden armor.

"Bad plan," O'Neill grumbled. He made the most of it--he fired off his last missile. Of course, if the reports of "perfect defenses" that could hold off even a nuke were true, his missile might be useless.

The weapon slammed into the golden statue and detonated. The Alchemical wobbled in midair, his jets apparently damaged, and the cube went back to its descent. "Get to the gate if you can," he shouted. "If you don't think you can make it, do all the damage you can." Then he shoved the yoke forward.

He'd just have to escort the thing down.

O'Neill dropped like a rock through layers of traffic, several of which were combat zones lit up by plasma fire and lightning. The only saving grace was, nobody much was expecting him or the cube, so he was a target of opportunity or not at all. Still, he had to dodge stray projectiles and all kinds of ships and...aw, hell, there was that golden golem again. O'Neill opened fire on him again, but with only his machine guns it was ineffective; bullets ricocheted everywhere but did the Alchemical no harm.

So O'Neill rammed him. Still didn't kill the robocop--hell, now he was tearing at the fuselage--but at least now they were all falling toward the furnace together. Alarms kept sounding until O'Neill shut them off. He knew they were in a stall, thank you very much. Still, he didn't really want to die like this. He adjusted the ailerons and made for the side of the chimney, then pulled up as hard as he could.

The chimney wall was thicker than it looked from way up there. The plane plowed into the surface, ripping the landing gear free with a scream from the fighter's belly, and slewed wildly toward the edge. The nose skidded over the lip, leaving them precariously perched on the edge.

With a crunch, the Alchemical clawed its way around from the bottom of the plane's nose.From this distance, he could see the cancerous golden implants that had eaten its face. He could also see that, in getting onto stable footing, it had dropped the Prison onto the fighter's skin.

O'Neill popped the hatch, pulled his sidearm, and shot the box, dislodging it. Undamaged, it rolled off the F-23 and dropped into the shaft below. The Alchemical stared at him, so O'Neill gave it his best grin. "Jumanji," he said.

The blast wave hit them too fast for sound.

*****

Lilah fumed, even as she knew it was foolish. The colonel was only fixing her mistake, and there was plenty of glory to go around. Still, she'd have liked to have it all for herself.

Glory wouldn't matter if he failed. Out here on the windblade, she looked helpless, and that was something she could use to her advantage. One of the rotorcraft got fed up with her dusting out of the way of its bullets and fired a missile at her. Exactly what she wanted. The missile blew past her as she banked slightly, and she caught it by a tailfin and swung it around, sending it spinning toward its parent craft. The explosion caught two more craft with flying debris.

A little more of this and she'd have them fighting each other for attacking such a poor, defenseless woman. To think, when Mara taught her Black Claw style she'd wondered what use it was. They hadn't had enough yet, though--another was positioning to fire....

The complex below her erupted with a plume of multicolored energy, every hue of the rainbow and then some. Lilah groaned as the rotorcraft scattered. A few fragments of the energy peeled off and faded to invisibility, but most of the torrent poured through the gateway. Along with it came O'Neill's F-23, flipping end over end. Well, damn. He was never going to survive that. He--

*****

In an action movie, O'Neill figured, he'd have a good solid chance of pulling his plane out of thus somehow. Unless he was the comedy sidekick, of course, in which case he'd still live through it.

He wasn't going to stop trying, of course, but his plane was spinning in all directions under massive structural stress and already heavily damaged. This wasn't _Speed 3_. He manipulated the control surfaces and managed to begin stabilizing things without ripping off a wing, but he had a long way to go before he was flying straight and not a long way to go before he hit something solid, like a pile of debris, or an incoming hail of bullets.

**Long and hard you have fought, Lord of War--**

"Hello!" O'Neill snapped at the disembodied voice. "I'm currently trying not to crash and die here! Could it wait--?" Oh. The F-23 was frozen in midair. Time seemed to have been stopped for some sort of supernatural phone call. "Sorry. What were you going to say?"

There was an impression of golden light, and four arms shrugging. **Do, or do not. There is no try. I would prefer that you not crash, Lord of War. Your destiny awaits, and existence hangs in the balance.**

The plane resumed spinning, and O'Neill resumed fighting with the controls. The difference was, now he was beating the pants off them. "'There is no try,' ha! Can't you do better than that?" One of the ailerons was jammed, but it didn't seem to matter any longer. He had the situation in hand. Wobbling slightly, he shot past Lilah just as both of them exited the gate. It wasn't even cramped.

The furball was still in progress, but there was protocol for this sort of thing. He keyed his mike. "Waaa-hoooo!"

*****

"Listen," Daniel protested, "you could give her a rest, at least. Why skew your results?"

The Viator laughed. "If you think an Exalt is so easily stress-tested, think again, mortal. Yes, her will has been pressed to its limits--"

"Exactly," Daniel said, not letting Executor interrupt him. "I know that you want this all to work out perfectly. Let the girl recover. Your data will be more trustworthy."

"Alas," the Viator growled, "I have not the time. The end of existence proceeds a--"

"Then it's all the more important--"

"Do not interrupt me, mortal. You live by my indulgence--"

"Then I don't actually have anything to lose, do I?"

Metal fingers closed around his throat. "Do you not?"

"You can kill me at any time. I don't have meaningful freedom and my life is subject to your arbitrary whims. I may as well spend my last moments trying to persuade you."

"Daniel Jackson, the Minister of Wrath is likely beyond your ability to persuade." At least Executor sounded concerned.

"Maybe," Daniel agreed. "But what if he's not?" Brilliant light flared, blinding them all, even the Viator. "This entire plan is madness. It's doomed to--"

The Viator lifted him and opened the door with his other hand. Harmony toppled out again. This time, the Viator left her there. It was Daniel he shoved inside. "It seems there was an argument you could make," he intoned. "Enjoy your success while you can." He picked up the girl. "Dispose of that one," he said to his cyborg minions, pointing at Teal'c. "I will finish my experiments."

*****

Help me. Please. It sounded like the whispers of the Neverborn, but softer. Almost inaudible.

Shoat of the Mire struggled ashore with Kate in tow. "We can't stay here," she said. "The fallout--"

\--will be minimal. It was an air burst for all practical purposes. 

"Who are you?" Shoat asked. "How do you know--?"

The Neverborn accidentally revealed it. I'm Captain Samantha Carter. As to how I'm doing this, nothing is unhackable, and I'm in a coma, on life support. 

Kate began coughing up seawater. Shoat let her clear her lungs on her own. "You need me to help you?"

Let me die. They have me caught between life and death. They want to empower me, but the price is too high. Isn't it? 

Shoat didn't hesitate a moment. "Yeah. I'll help you as fast as I can." The world didn't need any more like her.

Behind her eyes, the world turned white, and Captain Carter was gone. Maybe she had died.

If not, Shoat would keep her promise.

*****

Samantha Carter opened her eyes to a tunnel of white light.

**That was brave of you, and very clever. But you don't have to go.**

"Is this another trick?" The four-armed man had an honest face, shining with golden light, but of course he would.

**You realize that no answer I give to that should reassure you. But no, this is no trick. The gateway back to life--true life--lies open before you, and if you take it you may yet save the world.**

"What if I don't?"

**Others may succeed even if you refuse. It's up to you. Trust me, or not.**

She didn't realize she'd chosen until she opened her eyes again, to the hospital room, and found the light still there.

*****

The soot-black, skull-faced figure drove its claws into Prudence's shoulder. "The Bleeding Engine can and will use you, Ms. Maclay. Have no doubt of that."

Phoebe was left to rattle her cage in fury. To the right, Paige was out cold; the robot-thing had chosen not to risk her dematerializing again. "Let her go! Let my sister go, you...you monster!"

The creature smiled horribly at her. "You should never say that, you know. It's far too easy to willfully mishear."

"Paige! God, Paige, wake up!"

"She can't hear you. There's no one to save any of you, Phoebe. Even your powerful sister is far, far away." The claws sank deeper, and mechanical growths began to sprout from Prudence's face.

A sudden calm sank into Phoebe, a deep, irrational conviction that everything would be all right. That was crazy. Nothing was going to be all right. The creature stared at her. Why couldn't she get this expression of serenity off her face?

Then she realized it wasn't her face the monster was staring at. It was the blue halo that shone around her. She hit the lock, and the door popped open.

*****

"Lorne!" Oz sighed. "I don't know where he's headed in this."

Robin shrugged. "Is he scared, you think?"

"If you were afraid," Gwen asked, "would you leave the three of us? Something else is up."

Oz nodded and watched the cyberzombies spilling out of the portal. Pretty much the entire world was under attack by now. "Our powers are dangerous," he said to Gwen. "But not that dangerous."

Gwen nodded. "They just said on the news that the President tried nuking the city floating over New York. Compared to the collateral damage from that...."

"We're small potatoes," Robin agreed.

"Stay out of each other's way?" Oz suggested.

"You got it," Robin and Gwen said together.

*****

Satsu floored the gas. The bus driver kept protesting, and he was probably technically right about getting fired. He could worry about it if they were still alive tomorrow. If he'd listened to her, she'd be the only one still on the bus risking her life. The vehicle plowed through the invaders' lines as if they were a field of grain, but that wasn't her main objective.

She cut the wheel left, sending the bus into a skid, jamming the narrow street completely. At the last moment it tipped and crashed onto its side, knocking the wind from her. She'd nearly gotten herself killed doing it, but at least now the the invaders were blocked in to be taken care of piecemeal.

Silver light cascaded around her....

*****

A man with skin like dark water lifted the fallen wall as if it were nothing, letting them scramble to safety. "How can we ever repay you?" one of the tourists asked.

"Please," he said, "come with me. I'm trying to organize a defensive perimeter."

"What's your name?" asked one of the women, prompting a sigh.

"I swear it is a common Sikh name," he said. "I am not a genetic superman, but I am called Khan Singh."

The tourists looked at each other uncertainly. Khan put both hands to his face. This was going to be a pain.

*****

"The wave is spreading out across their world at a rapid pace," Ahn-Aru said testily, "but it has not yet crossed the dimensional barrier despite the thinning. There is that."

"No," Nara-O said. "Here it has broken." He pointed to a segment of the Loom representing the Lookshy defensive front. "Fate demanded it."

"Why?" Righteous Tsunami asked. "To put Bronze Faction out of sorts?"

"There," Shaia said. "There's the reason. The pull must have been irresistible at this point." She pointed to three brilliant essence flares as a fourth blossomed into golden flower. "The Exaltations had to reach the people they'd bonded to."

*****

Cordelia watched the onrushing zombie hordes hesitate as the Judge fell, sliced into pieces. No...that wasn't all. They, or whoever was controlling them, could see the pillars of light rising. Gunn's was golden, of course, but hers was a gorgeous crimson, Giles' was green as a manicured lawn, and Wes...well, it wasn't really fair, because she knew by now he wasn't a coward any longer.

She took up a fighting stance, somehow a gazillion times as easy now. The skeletal masses moved forward again, but she wasn't worried any more.

"These guys," she said, "are dust."


	11. God Likes Girls and Tomorrow

"You _should_ execute me," Yushuto Waving Grass said bluntly. "I am an akuma of Cecelyne. I do not know what I will be commanded to do next. But the fact remains that I acted according to military necessity to defend the city."

"By transforming a fishery into a brackish backwater?" The taizei sneered.

Waving Grass bowed his head. "Even so."

"Sir...sir!" Shouts rising from the ranks caught the taizei's attention and everyone looked up, even Waving Grass. A wall of mist loomed over the ruined section of river, and out of it, something was emerging in a churning whirlpool of bubbles. A First Age cruiser? But it seemed to have lost most of its guns.

A gangplank crashed to the beach, and a white-faced woman leapt atop it, gesturing in fury. _Mnemon?_ Mnemon _herself?_ Surely not; the beings leaping over the railings couldn't be true Exalts, and the Mnemon, for all her faults, surely wouldn't associate with Anathema.

Beings started passing through the hull as if it were immaterial...or more likely, as if they were. Blood apes, with horrible spines piercing their backs. Tomescu, with a dozen weapon limbs. Demon spiders. Metody. Creatures he'd never seen before. They charged right past him, barrelling toward the Mask of Winters' army.

The Anathema--and what had to be a small force of Realm Exalted, even if that couldn't be Mnemon--followed in their wake, bellowing out battle cries. "I am the Dread Pirate Roberts!" one shouted. "All your worst nightmares are about to come true!" Well, that much seemed likely.

A burst of green fire exploded out of the ship, and then...a titanic figure made of burning woven thorn branches came flying out as well, shining brass spreading rapidly over the wood as it charged. It stepped directly over him, blazing with emerald flame. What was it? A behemoth? How had it squeezed itself into the ship?

The taizei shook her head and looked at the ground. "I'll deal with you when the fight's over. Keep your nose clean, and maybe you can go back to hell with them."

Waving Grass sighed. It was a foolish decision, but not one he was going to argue with. Cecelyne wouldn't let him.

**Chapter 101--God Likes Girls and Tomorrow**

"Let the demons take on the zombies!" Buffy shouted, a little regretfully. Not that she was entirely following her own advice; her vines were snatching up zombies to be incinerated without her conscious intent. "Go for the big war machines!"

"Which one are you taking on?" Meticulous Owl asked.

"I'm going for the Juggernaut, bitch!" Buffy quipped. Her friends laughed, but the Abyssal didn't seem to get it. Oh well. Never explain the joke. "We need to take out the Mask while he's expecting us to keep chewing at his army. Watch my back?"

"Very well," Owl said graciously. She didn't really trust him to watch her back, but she probably didn't need him to. If he didn't, she'd know for sure what he was planning.

Cearr blurred past her, his body reduced somehow to streamers of red and green wind and light. He tore apart some undead shamblers in passing, but headed for some animate wooden artillery, following her orders. Undead wood? That was a new one on her.

Troopers in bone armor came running by beneath her feet. Headed for the ship? Well, maybe they thought they were cutting off her retreat, or maybe they planned to try and slip into the city through the harbor. "Hey Fred!" Buffy called. "Release the kraken!"

Tentacles burst from the water and began to bash the armored troopers together. Another thing that looked like a tentacle at first began devouring stunned soldiers with its lamprey mouth. Tara was getting _vicious_ lately. Buffy worried about her.

A soldier in gunzosha armor began waving at her, and she slowed to pick the figure up. _Are you who I think you are?_

 _It's me all right,_ Watcher-Buffy responded. _Kinda ready to get reabsorbed. This armor's making me old before my time, y'know?_

 _Understandable,_ Buffy admitted. She didn't like the idea of any part of her dying; it made her uneasy. _Hang tight._ She breathed in, and caught the armor bits as they fell apart.

Buffy breathed out, spewing green nuclear fire at an animate ballista and setting it aflame. Her other self had managed a solid tenure as Watcher to a Slayer who was far better at being silent and stealthy than she had ever been. Of course, Elloge had never had a Slayer before, or even a Dawn akuma. The other Yozis didn't seem to think much of her. But Geran Devon could be anyone, racking up an impressive kill count and even attempting to take out the Maiden With the Mirthless Smile.

Watcher-Buffy didn't feel ready to come out again yet. God, that was weird! Left alone for a little while, her variant selves would fade back into the whole, but they seemed to be persisting for longer and longer times. Instead, Buffy exhaled a new, basic copy and transformed her into a radeken. That burned a fair amount of energy, but she was getting good at cooperating with her other selves, too. Too bad Shadow wasn't here.

Sandstorms and black lightning racked the battlefield to her left. To her right--wait, was that Cordelia? "Congrats!" Buffy shouted. Cordelia jumped and flinched at the booming voice. "Hope you're having fun!"

Cordy flashed her a thumbs-up and then did something...odd. She pointed her finger at an approaching enemy soldier--a ghost-blooded mortal, looked like--and yelled "Bang!" The soldier began to roll his eyes but was suddenly felled by a stray arrow. "Anya says something weird's going on! This isn't supposed to work! Not complaining though!"

Buffy returned the thumbs-up signal--wow, her hands were _huge_ \--and scanned the battlefield. There were Giles and Wesley, too! But trying to make her way to them would put her striding through ranks of Dragon-Blooded who wouldn't appreciate her green flame aura. Instead she loped toward Juggernaut, as she'd planned. She wasn't sure how she was going to take it out--even at twenty-five feet high, she didn't reach the beast's knees--but she'd come up with something. The more she learned about her powers, the less they seemed to scale with the physics she understood; maybe she could smash it into the ground.

Something winged its way out of the Mask of Winters' Fortress, high above, barely a speck compared to her--but nonscalable physics, of course. If it was an Exalt, they might slap her on the head and knock her over. The Maiden. On a bat-winged, ghostly horse. At least there weren't nine of her. One of these days Buffy was going to find out why they looked so much alike. Buffy lashed out tendrils of burning vine-hair at her, but the Maiden dodged it easily, then slashed back with chains that burst from her ribcage. Ow! Damnit, that still hurt!

The Maiden darted towards her, straight into the flame aura, which didn't even singe her. Straight into the knotted thorns that made up Buffy's body, even! Somewhere, rattling around inside Buffy's right head, she spoke.

"You want to fight the Mask of Winters? More fool you...and I as well. Will you trust me?"

Buffy blinked, feeling a little bit blindsided. "I thought we were going to fight."

The Maiden snickered. "We can do that too."

*****

Anja tried again to make out what Alexander was singing, but he seemed to be lapsing into some other language to find rhymes. At least he had a pretty voice, when he wasn't bellowing. She leapt over a brace of zombies and began tearing at one of the spider-things. "Alexander! These distribute essence-power to the Mask's servants!"

Still singing, Alexander ran over and began to slice at it with Wavecleaver. "It's good to see you too!"

Anja stuck out her tongue at him. Of course she was glad to see him! "I'm sure you've been--how did you put it?--beaning Anya nonstop since we spoke last. We'll have to catch up after the fight." She glanced upward at Buffy as she strode off toward the Mask of Winters' citadel. "I take it she's good and over her fear of not being human."

Alexander groaned. "It's 'boning', and yeah...aside from the two heads thing. She says that's still confusing."

"I can see how that works," Anja admitted. "I can also think of a very enjoyable use for it...."

"After the fight!" Anya called. "Don't get distracted while we're surrounded by zombies."

Anja shrugged. "Zombies. Meh. I'm more worried about the Deathlord whose behemoth Buffy is breathing fire at. I have no fear of sex during regular combat."

Anya drew four flaming arrows at once and fired them off at a lumbering meat puppet carrying a huge sword. They all converged on it from different angles and set it ablaze. Neat trick. "Burn baby burn! Sex in a fight sounds awkward and difficult."

"Takes practice." Anja had a neat trick of her own; she transformed into her new, improved catgirl form, which was a lot bigger and stronger than just having ears, tail, and claws. "I promise it can be done, though. Now is not the time, however."

"You sure?" Alexander sounded strangely squeaky. Men.

*****

"The question is," Cyan began, "are you prepared to pardon me after this is over with? No doubt I can find some way to make you forget, if I must, but it seems so...awkward." She pitched a set of knives at an undead tyrant lizard, enveloping it in shadow and flame.

The Roseblack yanked her suddenly aside as a catapult stone crashed down where she'd been standing. "For services to the Realm," she said, "I can pardon one Manosque. Has Mnemon told you the same, as I expect?"

"Good guess," Cyan said, "and thank you. Doesn't it seem to you as if some of us aren't taking this fight seriously? Not the jokes, that's merely Buffy's way. But--"

"I see it," Ejava agreed. "It's the fight with the Silver Prince. Everyone is feeling overconfident, with even more Exalted and Anathema present and the Judge incapacitated just before our arrival." A gesture with her blade sent vines ripping across a yeddim-sized monster. "But what do we do about it?"

"I can always set up a complication," Cyan suggested jokingly. "Mnemon and her alliance with the Mask. Our Abyssals changing sides. Unexpected necromancy. Something along those lines?"

"Let's not make matters any harder than they have to be," the Roseblack grumbled. "I have no doubts disaster will--" The ground began to rumble. "--happen on its own. Shit." Howling specters rose into the sky from somewhere among the war machines. "There's our necromancer."

Cyan sighed. "Let's go deal with her."

*****

Gunn cursed at his axe, which was still sharp but somehow didn't seem nearly as effective as it had been before he took out the Judge. Wasn't that backwards? Shouldn't he be more powerful now? At least he was still doing damage.

Buffy's sister was still an infant, though she was able to speak. She'd asked him once to get her to Xander or a Wyld pocket, but he was stuck here in the middle of a war zone. At least, from the sound of it, Xander was around here somewhere now.

Giant-monster-Buffy was off in the distance fighting something he couldn't even see, breathing twin streamers of flame that kept hitting Juggernaut instead of their tiny target--unless that was the plan, maybe?

Something blurred past him. "Nice axe. Mine is better." The blur lopped off the arms of some soldiers in bone armor who'd closed in on him while he fought off a wave of shamblers.

"Can you kill the Judge with it?" The blue demon probably wasn't actually dead; rumor had it he was a fetich soul, and there hadn't been any horrific explosions or anything like that. 

"Hmm. Good question. I'll try it sometime. Right now I'm more concerned about killing a necromancer with it." An arm coalesced out of the wind, pointing toward horrible twisted ghosts shrieking their way across the battlefield. "Cearr, by the way. And you're Charles Gunn. Buffy says good things 'bout ya."

"Want to see which one of us can take 'em out?"

"Aw, ain't no contest, kid. You're too new at this."

Gunn gritted his teeth and brandished his axe. "You're on, pal, whether you like it or not." He heeled the swift rider over and raced off in the direction the ghosts had come from. Cearr, though on foot, easily kept pace with him. Maybe the other guy was right, but Gunn wasn't gonna sit around and let him go it alone.

*****

Son of Crows stalked across the battlefield, and zombies turned to follow in his wake. The outworlders largely ignored him and focused on Meticulous Owl, to which he had no objection. The Owl was interested only in his endless game of betrayals; no doubt Buffy would be next. Son of Crows wanted power; betrayal was, at most, a means to an end.

Speaking of which, there was the Lady of Darkness, whom Buffy confusingly referred to as "Ebony", fighting against Cearr and an unfamiliar Southerner wielding axes. Many of these zombies were her creations. Son of Crows pointed. "Get the woman," he said simply.

The zombies weren't likely to seriously hurt her, not even in such numbers. They did, however, put pressure on her. She knocked them aside, even smacked them into her opponents' path. Son of Crows began to casually toss daggers into the fray as well. He was content not to insert himself into the spotlight, so long as he was effective. With his interference, Cearr and the Southerner began striking home with their axes. Soon the necromancer would cease to be a problem.

A dagger pierced her through the chest. Well, that was a surprise. Kill to him. Her eyes began to glaze over, and...and...blazed suddenly with pyre flame. The Lady of Darkness shrieked and began to grow, shadows swirling around her, vanishing into her mouth and eyes and all her orifices. Her fist batted all three of them casually aside.

This could not be good.

*****

Buffy dodged the brace of chains as the Maiden came around for another pass, and they ripped into Juggernaut's hide instead. She couldn't make sense of the Maiden's heel-face turn, but they were certainly tearing into the monster with their pretend fight. Shame he didn't seem just extremely hurt. "Come on, Pinhead, you can do better than that. Where's--?"

The chains raked her left face. Oww! Ok, in fairness, if they never hit each other the Mask of Winters would get suspicious. "I am not 'Pinhead', whoever that is," the Maiden complained. Buffy shrugged and breathed fire at her. She flew through it, but once again Juggernaut got burnt. "Watch out," the Maiden called unexpectedly. Buffy began to turn her right head to look, and a pair of hands grabbed her by the heads and slammed them together.

For all of half a second, Buffy was dazed. Then she spun around, and..."Egogy. No. One-winged angel is not a good look for you." The totally-extra Abyssal had grown to about thirty feet tall--giving her a whole Buffy-height on Buffy--and was clad only in a loose draping of chains. Her eyes and mouth glowed with a green flame even sicklier than Buffy's, while her caste mark and...crotch had become black vortices into the void. Black-feathered wings of shadow rose and fell behind her, with extremely-not-safe-for-work videos swirling through the pinions in black and white. She opened her mouth and screamed, and leaves fell from Buffy's vine-hair, brown and crumbling. Her left face felt dry and withered.

Buffy turned both jets of fire-breath on her, then struck at her with her scorpion tail. The Abyssal breathed fire back at her, setting her tail afire even though it was already burning. The pyre-flame seared through her armored form like acid. Frantically, Buffy tried to scrape the stuff--it was like napalm--off on Juggernaut. Meanwhile she slashed and tore at Ebony with hair now composed almost entirely of thorns.

The Abyssal flinched, but then Buffy's hair snagged somewhere low on her torso and began to pull. Inexorable gravity reeled her heads lower and lower. The Lady tittered as if this were the funniest situation she could think of. Trying to get leverage, Buffy grabbed Juggernaut's leg, but the beast shook her off. A little surprisingly, the Maiden flew down and attempted to slash Buffy's hair free with her daiklaive, but that put her dangerously close to the event horizon herself, and soon she abandoned the task.

This was going to be an extremely embarrassing way to die.

*****

"You know," Fred suggested to Willow, "I'm going to have to visit Earth just to talk to Stephen Hawking?"

"Oh?" Willow asked, blasting what seemed to be the last spider-creature into scrap. That should help with the power-distribution problem.

"Black holes do have hair," Fred said, pointing at the horrific shape the Lady of Darkness had taken on.

Willow spent a moment giggling and snorting helplessly before realizing that there was a problem. "Girls, does Buffy look a little bit...trapped to you?" Buffy's vine hair was dragging her inexorably toward the singularity, left head first, and her attempts to cut herself free weren't working. Also, her scorpion tail was on fire, with the blaze threatening to spread to other parts of her body.

"We'd better go help her," Tara said before transforming into her new radeken shape. She launched herself into the air.

Fred glanced at Willow. "I'm starting to wonder if we're in over our heads this time."

Willow tilted her head quizzically. "Why? No time dilation this time."

There was that.

*****

Rose Petals Parted swatted several radeken out of the sky, but they just kept coming. One of them reached Buffy and shone a brilliant beam of sunlight onto the pyre flame Rose had set Buffy's tail aflame with. In moments, the flame had been reduced to an oily smear. At least the tail was down to a stump, though, and Buffy was within a yard or two of being swallowed up faces first.

Her circlemates weren't going to sneer at her any more after this. Buffy Summers had gained a reputation for being everywhere at once, somehow foiling plan after plan by Deathlords and demon lords and Dragonblooded all alike. And now she was going to be known as the one who put a stop to the Slayer's rampage.

She'd been afraid to face the Neverborn--she'd never heard their voices in her head, had never truly believed in the teachings the Mask of Winters told her of. But the Mask had ordered her. When she humbled herself before the tomb, her Master had laughed inside her head and told her that faithlessness was the truest expression of belief in their power anyway. She didn't fear them quite so much any more, not after what they'd taught her.

Down below her, Terrestrials were getting pulled off the ground and into the air, although for the moment Buffy's hair was preventing most of them from being sucked into Oblivion. Also, a line of zombies was forming under the direction of that renegade Son of Crows and...who was the piratey-looking guy? Cearr and Charles Gunn let the zombies take hold of them and leapt into the air, forming a chain of flesh that reached most of the way up her legs, axes at the ready. Well, hell. She spat pyre flame at them, but Cearr batted it aside easily. This might be a problem yet.

Then she felt Buffy's head lodge between her legs. Never mind, it was the end for _her_.

*****

Buffy screamed, nearly deafening herself, as her left head began to break apart in splinters and chunks of wood. She was being pulled in. Her vision strobed in and out as one of her brains came to pieces and her senses fought to compensate somehow. No one remotely human could have survived long enough to feel what she was feeling, but with a second head she was free to experience the other being shredded by the singularity between Evony's legs.

"Hang in there!" Gunn shouted, as if there were some way he could rescue her now. He and Cearr drew back their axes and began to chop--not through her hair-vines, which would have been useless now, but through her _neck_.

It might work, she realized as the pain of it tore through her. She was going to lose one head no matter what. The other would keep her alive...probably. Whether the destroyed one would grow back in this form was another question entirely. She gritted her teeth and wished she were capable of blacking out from the agony of it. Ironically enough, that was beyond her power.

*****

Anya flung up her hand and sent the ballista bolt back the way it came. It was an excessive display of power, but she didn't much care. Five Seasons Response was the best counter she had on hand without abandoning Xander and Buffy.

Mnemon hurled an explosive burst of rock at the towering Abyssal, and Sulumor matched it with a gout of cutting sand, but the necromancer hardly noticed. Damn, they'd underestimated her. From the look of her, she probably counted on people underestimating her.

Buffy's neck parted, and she lurched to her feet, ignoring what had to be excruciating pain. Fire and sap squirted from the severed neck while Gunn finished hacking her hair free. She looked awful. Anya hoped for her sake that it didn't carry over to her human form.

"We need to fall back," Jalyn Korfos said, waving his hand over the battlefield. "While we've been busy here, large sections of their artillery have pressed closer to the city. I'm pleased we saved your friend, but it cost us."

Xander nodded agreement. "Not to mention our Huge Slut here doesn't even look hurt, and this form has gotta be at least as powerful as Buffy's."

"It is," said the Maiden, drawing distrustful stares, "and you have not even begun to harm Juggernaut or face the Mask of Winters."

"Since when are you interested in changing sides?" Anja asked, scowling.

"Since the Mask humiliated me," the Maiden growled back.

"Hey, sounds legit," Cearr chuckled. "You interested in a beer after we kick his ass?"

"Perhaps," the Maiden said. She smiled, and then turned a little green. "I'll think it over."

*****

Shadow stepped into the Silver Prince's apartments and threw herself down on the bed.

So, okay, it could have gone more smoothly. The Council of Elders had accepted her as the Deathlord's reincarnation...after she talked them into it. So far, so good. But now she had to deal with all manner of ghostly rituals and figure out how to rework Skullstone's bizarre society into something that was just but functional and really, sometimes success was almost as bad as failure. Her nails. She'd feel better after she did her nails.

"Buffy."

Shadow looked up. "Not a good idea to call me that."

"I'm not worried." The speaker was a handsome man with ruddy skin and golden hair and shining eyes...oh, and four arms, mustn't forget that. "Buffy, I need you to come with me. I need your help."

*****

Alexander hacked away at the Lady of Darkness's delicate, gigantic foot with Wavecleaver. So far as he could tell, it had no more effect than when he'd been hacking at Juggernaut's. A line of zombies held him down to keep him from being sucked up into her nether regions, and boy, did he ever trust _that_. But somebody had to do it. Mnemon was talking about calling up the horrific earthquake power she'd nearly destroyed Gem with, only Juggernaut might just decide to move, and Ebony could easily go with him.

"D'you ever think we went into the wrong line of work?" Gunn asked. "Like, somebody else could be doing the whole saving--"

Fire fell on Juggernaut like an avalanche. "Move!" Alexander yelled, and grabbed Gunn by the hand before running like all thirteen Deathlords were after him. Behind them, pillar of fire after pillar of fire slammed into the ground. Juggernaut was roaring like a dying kaiju, and then he heard Enoby shriek once--only once--and the fire fell close enough behind them to singe Alexander's boots, and....

Silence. Dead silence. Alexander looked up.

A column of light lanced down from the sky. Not fire this time, though it illuminated the ashes of a hundred thousand formerly-undead corpses. In the center of the column, a figure shimmered into being, a woman built as if she were short but whom the image made tower into the sky, her face pale with makeup, wearing something vaguely like a kimono.

"I am the Scarlet Empress," intoned the figure, "and I have returned."


	12. I Should Have Been a Pair of Ragged Claws

Slowly, painfully, Willow accreted back from ash. Bones. She was bones. Ligaments, organs, muscles, skin. No clothes, but what did that matter to a mummy?

"...have returned. After five years meditating on the Imperial Manse my control has vastly improved. Yet I return to disappointment. A fool sits on my throne while menaces spread across the world. This has been my warning shot. The Mask of Winters is no more."

Mnemon shouted at the sky. "You liar! My mother is dead! Who are you, impostor?"

The giant hologram, if it could hear her, ignored her protests. "All Anathema who wish not to die without warning must surrender their petty kingdoms. Thorns is now a protectorate of the Realm, and so will their kingdoms be. Those who personally submit to me within a month will be imprisoned rather than executed. Nations not ruled by Anathema I will treat with fairly, but I proclaim my right of conquest over anyone who does not agree to fair terms."

"It's Mister Big," Cearr muttered, slapping a hand on Mnemon's shoulder. "He's a Yozi loyalist, an Infernal."

Mnemon snarled loudly and rubbed the hilt of her sword. "And he masquerades as my dead mother?" She growled again, grinding her teeth.

"My gift to you is peace. Your gift to me must be obedience. As an immediate token of submission within my Realm, I draw your attention to the words of the Mouth of Peace: 'All passion directed toward the Immaculate Dragons is worship, even that of lust. One who pleasures himself or herself, thinking of the Immaculate Dragons, acts piously.' From this day forward, all those above the age of majority should engage in this act of worship no less than once a week. Soon I will address you again, and you shall know who has chosen submission, and who death." The hologram vanished like mist.

"Fokof," Mnemon grated. "Tepet Fokof serves the Yozis and holds the Sword of Creation?"

"That's the guy," Cearr confirmed. "Tepid Fuck-off rules the world now, and you can bet he'll be freeing the Ebon Dragon soon as he figures it out."

Mnemon sagged to her knees. "We can't win. We can't beat this."

**Chapter 102--I Should Have Been a Pair of Ragged Claws**

"I was concerned that he could hear us," Mnemon said. "But this privacy veil should be impervious even to the senses of the Imperial Manse."

They were all crowded into a meeting room that no Anathema had ever seen before. For that matter, neither had Mnemon or the Roseblack. It was a spartan place, intended for gatherings of Lookshy's General Staff, ruling in lieu of the long-dead Shogunate, and it stood atop the central hill of the city itself. Seats had been crammed into the meeting hall until they were nearly in each other's laps.

"Then we can still beat him?" Cyan asked. "How?"

"Ideally, the same way he beat us," Mnemon said. "By subversion. Failing that, there are defensive weapons that can be turned against even the Sword of Creation. But either way, I must have two things from all who work with me. You must be secretive; I will not have our plans ruined by foolish charging about in the open. At the same time, you must be ruthless. If someone must die, you must be ready to kill them. If you cannot do these things, then stand aside...and be ready to submit to Fokof's edicts when we lose. They will surely grow worse."

Buffy lifted her head, brazen scar tissue sheathing her whole face in metal. "I'm in."

"You can operate in secret?" the Roseblack asked skeptically. "Forgive me, but you're about as stealthy as the Bull of the North."

"'The Slayer must operate in secrecy, for safety's sake,'" Buffy quoted. "In my world, I hunt at night, and I hide the evidence. Most people don't know about magic or demons, and I helped keep it that way. Then I came here. But I can be as quiet as I need to be." She waved her left hand a little, her shadow flickered over her, and at once she was a dark-skinned, aged man in a Seventh Legion uniform as wrinkled as his skin.

"We're going to be infiltrating the Realm, all the way onto the Blessed Isle itself," Mnemon warned. "I heard about your fight with Tepet Lisara in the Lap. You're powerful, Buffy, but if you'd faced anyone with real tactical skill you'd have died there. If you have to use any powers, be as stealthy about it as possible or you _will_ die. Best not to use any nonstealth powers at all."

"What are our goals?" asked the young, bespectacled man between...the older bespectacled man and the young dark-haired woman. They all had names. Sidereals, Mnemon presumed.

"First, we must embed agents on the Blessed Isle, in the Lap, and in Gethamane. The Lap holds the Penitent, which can manipulate ley lines on a massive scale. Gethamane's depths hold a massive reality engine that can disrupt the Pole of Earth itself; I think I may be the only living human who knows this, besides perhaps a few Anathema.

"Once we hold those key sites, only then will it be safe--so to speak--to strike at Fokof. We can use the Penitent, or at great need, the engine beneath Gethamane, to prevent him from attacking us with the Sword. He'll still have vast forces at his command."

Chumyo Amilar Eliso spoke up. "How is it that you know of this thing in Gethamane? Such a device would surely be kept secret, and it is far from Realm interests."

"I heard about it during a dispute between my mother and an Immaculate master," Mnemon said, not adding that the master had been Chejop Kejak. "They believed I had forgotten. Later I confirmed it by cross-referencing obscure passages at the Versino, which I regret you won't be able to verify. And regrettably, I know nothing more on the subject."

"Convenient," the chumyo muttered.

"You needn't be involved," Mnemon said lightly. "I'll need your assistance more at the Lap anyway." She turned to scan the room. "In the end, this certainly will come to fighting. In private, train. Work on your combat skills and magics, but try not to flare your anima, and don't use anything but martial arts in public unless you're Dragon-Blooded. Be very careful; I can provide a place where it should be safe to train."

*****

Tara winged her way off toward the northeast. She was going to join in--of course she was!--but she had barely established her control over Sperimen before leaving. Ideally, she'd rather not be a ruler at all, but there was too much risk of Raksi loyalists taking over if she didn't. In Sperimen, she could train freely, then return when she was needed, possibly with more help. The greater part of her army had been killed in combat with the Skullstone navy, and though she felt bad about it, many of them had been dangerously violent. So maybe she would return to find her society intact. That was the Silver Way, certainly.

One thing she didn't have time to do on the way, unfortunately, was hunt, unless there was something she could drive in front of her. She needed to reach Sperimen soon. She did have time to practice other powers, though. Tara could hear the chatter from below her, and to her it sounded as if Raksi had been honest with her. Unless she spoke to them, most animals communicated in simple calls that sounded no more intelligent than her alarm going off, or a baby doll programmed to say a few words. That relieved her; she really didn't want to go vegetarian.

She scanned the forest, honing her senses. Tara might not have Willow or Fred's genius, but she was better at seeing what was actually around her. Game trails and burrows and nests unfolded before her. Big predators were rare here, except for humans, but there was plenty of big game. What she could see, and hear, and smell, that would be useful even in civilization. And she would be going back. Soon.

Just not now.

*****

Debris rained down on the highways surrounding St. Louis. Airships exploded under the barrage of fire. They'd be clearing away the bodies for days. As victories went, it was fairly miserable. Lilah juggled images and catch phrases, trying to work out how to spin it.

Her ring tone sounded. "This is the President speaking. Who's calling?"

"Lilah, it's Helen. Are you done grandstanding? I have some urgent news for you."

Lilah groaned. "Shoot. Any of it good?"

"On a strategic scale, somewhat. Our ambassador to Venezuela negotiated a ceasefire with one of the invading forces there."

"C. W. Murray? Always thought he'd have made a lousy lawyer, but he's a good man."

"True, but we think it has more to do with his Exaltation. Unfortunately the invaders are too divided for this to be a wider breakthrough. Also, there's some Stanton fellow kicking alien butt in London and--get this--a factory worker named Khan Singh is leading an effective resistance from the slums in Kolkata."

"You're joking, right?"

"Not a bit. Apparently Sikh names are like that. He's a Terrestrial, by the way. And he's seen the movie and is just as appalled as we are to become a bona-fide genetic superman."

"All this sounds like good news, Helen. Where's the catch?"

Brucker sighed. "It's not a question of catches. These are bright spots, but overall we're losing. And even if we win, we inherit a landscape of ruins. If this were a war of choice, I'd call any victory pyrrhic."

Lilah watched the last of the androids fall. The Gateway Arch became, once again, only architecture. "So we have to do more than win. We have to rebuild a world." A notion arose. "I need to find Faith. I'll call you back."

*****

Anya brushed back her hair. Time to practice. Ahn-Aru was going to be disappointed in her progress as it was. She went out into the hallway, trying to study the chumyo, but learned nothing she didn't already know. Without the side branches, her studies were at a standstill.

"Anya," said Buffy's voice, and she turned. Not Buffy--paler, with a reverse skunk stripe in her hair. Anya's breath caught, and she put her hands up. One day--maybe today--she was going to end this woman. "I wanted you to know that...that...." The Maiden halted.

"Spit it out," Anya snapped.

"That I...I'm sorryfortryingtokillyou." The Maiden caught her breath. "I don't understand why. It should be a mercy to die, and even if it weren't, I enjoy hearing people scream. But somehow...somehow now it feels bad that I tried."

Anya couldn't help it. She started to giggle. "I'm sorry. There's just something about us...about Buffy, maybe...where we attract people who shouldn't be able to get redemption and want it anyway. Like me, and Angel and Spike...."

"Redemption?" The Maiden scowled. "Is that what it's called? Stop laughing at me."

"I'm sorry." Anya did her best to straighten out her face. "Yes, it is absolutely called redemption. Take it from the ex-vengeance demon, ok? It's long and hard and involves lots of bad-guy massacres."

"I'm still allowed to kill people?"

"Just as long as they're evil," Anya said cheerily.

"Most of the people I know are evil," the Maiden said. "I expect that I'm still evil."

"Well...yes...but you're trying not to be. It'd be bad form to kill you." Anya regarded the Maiden sideways, and suddenly it leapt out at her: the Maiden had mastered conventional Abyssal combat. She knew the form of a whip-based BDSM style, and a charm or two of another based on hungry ghosts. She felt only a faint curiosity about Anya. "We can fight, though. You'd be interesting to spar with."

"You would have to be a better fighter than when we met."

On impulse, Anya stuck out her tongue at the Maiden. "I am most certainly better than that."

"Find us an arena, and you are on."

*****

Kate stumbled blindly through the water. New York was intact, mostly, shielded by the bulk of the alien city, but it was hard to say how much radiation had gotten through. Shoat clung to her, murmuring comforting words as if she were the adult.

Harmony was gone. The Terminator knockoff had taken her. Without Harmony, Kate was just an over-powered werecreature. She didn't have the versatility to go up against an endless army of super-cyborgs. Shoat still had her own zombie force, but against the invasion they were surely nothing.

"We need to retreat," Kate mumbled. "I don't know where. We're not making much of a difference here, though."

"What if we got up there?" Shoat asked, pointing at the city. The Air Force hadn't returned after the nuke. They knew what was up.

"What if we did?" Kate responded. "Don't you expect they've got a thousand troops up there? And who knows how many of them are Exalted? Shoat, the _city_ is Exalted. It just shrugged off a nuke! We're nothing compared to it."

"Okay," Shoat agreed. "What if we took them?"

Kate followed her pointing finger. There were people emerging from the city, a long convoy of police cars and armored trucks traveling at top speed. Soon they would hit the wall of wrecked traffic, though. "What about them?"

"Kate... _look_ at them."

Kate looked closer...and saw. All but one were women, with skin that ranged from cool sky blue to midnight and hair that flowed in the breeze like seaweed. The one was a man with skin grey as old oak bark and green leafy hair. _Terrestrials._

"All right," Kate said thoughtfully. "Let's see what they can do."

*****

"Where are we going?" Samantha Finn scanned the map, but it was too alien to make sense of. Elemental Poles? Five of them?

"It's called the Blessed Isle," Buffy said, "because, you know, flooded with Terrestrial Exalts, the holiester-than-thou people in Creation. I mean, I know, no big for you two, but for the rest of us it's not too safe."

"Doesn't sound too bad," Sam said thoughtfully. "I mean, no one's going to recognize you as Exalted because technically you're not. And the rest of us...well, we should be all welcome, right?"

"You _are_ Outcastes," one of Buffy's ex-suitors pointed out. "Your status would be relatively low. But your breeding is certainly extraordinary, on the other hand, so you will definitely be very popular Outcastes."

"We're, um...first-generation," Riley began, ignoring Sam's frantic waving at him to shut up. "There weren't any Terrestrials in our world till they got recreated."

"Wait, you mean your Exaltation was given to you fresh from the Dragons?" Nellens Vai put a hand on his shoulder and leaned close.

"Ahh...not exactly, it was in a box? Imprisoned?"

"But pure?" asked Cynis Darvin. "But that makes your breeding the purest in existence." Suddenly Riley and Sam were up to their ears in Dragon-Blooded.

"I'll teach you anything you want to know! Just give me a child by you!"

"Bear my child, stranger! We'll pay any price!"

Sam groaned. "No public sex, okay? We'll discuss it when we stop for the night."

"It won't take long!"

"Tonight!" Sam insisted. "And Riley, get your head out of your ass!" He had the grace to hang his head; it was hard to tell anymore if he blushed. 

"Buffy," Riley said sheepishly, "we would have gone back to Earth as soon as we saved Gem if I didn't think the crises we're having were related. We're being invaded by magic robot aliens."

"From Autochthonia," Buffy muttered. "I've met a few of them. Are you sure they're invading? They seemed friendly."

"Washington is in ruins," Sam snapped. "The world is getting smashed into rubble. They're invading."

"Sorry," Buffy said, backtracking. "I believe you. I'm telling the rest of me. I don't know what the connection is, but as soon as I can send help I will."

V'neef Usolt held up her hand. "Look, if they have a Dragon-Blooded shortage, the Blessed Isle sure doesn't. You've got your helltech to deliver, so you're bringing something to the table even if we leave. Your world has the purest Dragon-Blooded possible, and honestly...I'm curious what it's like."

"Right now it's a disaster area," Riley warned. She gave him a flat stare. "I'm just saying going to the library or the hardware store is probably pointless."

"Not forever," Ledaal Yaruch said. "And in the meantime, we can teach you as promised. Is that worth something to you?"

"A great deal," Sam agreed. "How soon do you want to leave?"

Usolt shrugged. "Now would be good."

*****

Faith was resting on the back of Colonel O'Neill's fighter jet when Lilah came soaring up to her. She made a face. "What do you want from me this time?"

"You've been in the Wyld."

Faith grumbled, "Yeah, it nearly rubbed me out, so I'm not planning on going back. Does it even exist here?"

"Always," Lilah said patiently, "and we're going to need it. But the Wolf, Ram, and Hart locked down the doors a long time ago. I think if the raksha really wanted to they could smash down the barrier, but they've lost interest."

"You locked the doors, you unlock 'em. What do you even want out there for an' why should I get involved?" She rolled over onto her back. O'Neill was coming in for a landing.

"Look around you. It's not going to be enough to win the war, and in any case we're getting our behinds thoroughly kicked. What we need is the kind of impossible things the ancient Solars used to pull out of their asses on a regular basis. First to win, and then to rebuild. As for why you...I'm told you've been there. That you have a little power over the place."

"You can come back with the horse's ass this time," Faith said. "I'm not interested."

"What kind of compensation do you want, Faith? Blank check. I'll see to it that it gets done."

"Hah. You're serious, aren't you?" Faith sat up, ignoring the bumpy landing. It didn't matter. "Tell me how to get in."

"The Gateway Arch was designed as a generalized portal," Lilah explained. "I'll give you the unbinding words and it should open to the Wyld. Then you can go through and scout, perhaps negotiate."

"Negotiate," Faith said, laughing, thinking of _The Fifth Element_. "Let me find Ames. I'm not going alone this time. Then we'll see."

"I would say 'Take your time,'" Lilah said, "but we really can't afford to. Please act quickly."

*****

Tara dropped into the branches, transforming herself into an almost-human form. She caught herself with copied monkey-tail and -feet. Mahalanka was quiet, the people scratching, subdued, at their patches of farmland outside the city. There had to be agriculture, of course, but surely some of these people should have been attending classes. She crept carefully through the vines and branches.

Okay, there were people on the campus. Some of them did seem to be studying, though from here she couldn't tell what. There was a gathering near the central hall. And someone who shone like the sun was addressing them with her foot on a man's back.

Another Exalt was trying to make a claim here. That was no good. Tara dropped from her perch. Immediately the people prostrated themselves before her; she had thought she'd fixed that.

"So," said the lighted figure, "you thought you could go somewhere I couldn't follow." She lifted up the man's head, revealing a forehead full of green stubbly horns. Spike? "You thought the devil was stronger than God. But I've caught up with you now, witch. It's all over."

Tara's eyes went wide. "Beth?"


	13. When the Evening Is Spread Out Against the Sky

Faith and Amy stood at the base of the Gateway Arch atop the remains of a hovercraft. Amy smiled nervously. Faith just shuddered. "Been here. Done this. I don't even know if anything basic about the Wyld has changed. We're in a whole other time frame. I don't know, I don't know...."

"Faith, you don't have to do this. I can shape the Wyld just like demon realms."

Faith shook her head vehemently. "I'm sure ya can, but you haven't been there. The Wyld isn't like hell. It's worse. You can't trust anything. Not even the air."

"All right then." Amy put her hands on Faith's shoulders and began to rub. "Lilah gave you a word?"

"More'n one of 'em. First I got to say 'Bgtzl'." Amy struggled to follow the pronunciation. "That unlocks the door. Then I say...'By the authority of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, I invoke ancient chaos to let me pass through.' There. that oughta do it." Faith put her hand into the space with no resistance and no visible effect. "Huh." She walked forward until she was on the other side of the Arch, but she was...just on the other side of the Arch. "What the hell? Okay, she said there were these specialized invocations in case they've got it blocked from their side...." Faith trailed off again. "Ames, we're being played."

"What? By Lilah? What's she got to gain from it?" She walked over to Faith's side.

"Nah, they're playing her too. I know a secret." Faith gave the Arch a lopsided smile. "I wish the Goblin King would come and take us away, right now."

Amy was about to ask whether this was some sort of twisted joke, but the Arch swirled with a momentary orange vortex that yanked them both off their feet and through. She came crashing down on gritty dirt and began to struggle to her feet, but something....

She couldn't breathe. Or rather, she could but it wasn't helping. The pale sun rode low in a pink sky and...they weren't in the Wyld at all. They were on Mars. They were going to die on Mars.

**Chapter 103--When the Evening is Spread Out Against the Sky**

Beth Maclay smiled. It wasn't as if her cousin had any real reason to be surprised. The Bible said, "Be sure your sin will find you out," and this place practically _reeked_ of sin. Tara was a witch, and God wasn't going to let her escape.

"Things must be getting bad at home," Tara said. "I'm sure you're very confused, b-but there are people here who can help you understand what it means to be a solar." She didn't say a solar _what_ , for some reason.

"I know what I am," Beth said, laying it out plainly. "God freed me from the family curse so that I could put an end to the Maclay witches."

"Beth, there _is no_ family curse!" Wow. Tara was all worked up. You didn't see that often. "We were never descended from demons."

Beth considered that, then used a strong word. "Blasphemer." She pulled the demon's head up higher and made to cut his head off.Tara snapped out a gibberish word, a quick spell, and the demon imploded beneath Beth, who stood. No doubt Tara was going to claim she'd cast out the demon, but she'd done it to protect him. "That doesn't count."

For an instant Tara stood there confused, so Beth attacked. She wasn't a fighter, not like Tara's "friend", Buffy, but she had superstrength now, and she launched a punch at Tara's midsection. That should crumple her over for an easy kill.

Tara caught it. She caught it easily. "I've seen worse," she said, and for a moment Beth thought Tara was describing her form. "I've fought a Deathlord. I've seen the hate in his eyes as he charged me, Beth. You don't rate beside that." She pulled back her fist. Beth didn't worry; Tara wasn't capable of real violence, only deceit. The punch rocked her head back and slammed her into a wall. "But you could, if you understood what you are. You're a Solar. That's what the light around you means."

Beth rolled her eyes as she staggered away from the wall. She wasn't even hurt. Tara didn't know what she was talking about and probably wasn't even any stronger than she had been. Why wasn't she trying to cast a spell? "What I understand is that God tells me when people lie, and when they sin. What I understand is that he helps me punish them. I kill witches, Tara. You won't be the first." She held up her knife and lit it with hellfire.

Tara shook her head sadly. "You have a problem, Beth. You just admitted to murder. And here, I'm the queen."

"Of course you are," Beth said. "You're delusional. Or maybe the devil gave you power over these...things' hearts." She flicked the knife forward and slashed Tara's side, then faded into the undergrowth. She wouldn't realize she was already dead now. "Not like it matters."

"They're people," Tara said, head swinging back and forth. "Not things. You're not thinking clearly. You _choose_ not to think clearly." But she plainly wasn't seeing Beth. Her hand went to the wound, where the hellfire had burned her. "You're not a Solar," she murmured. "You don't realize, do you?"

"I don't even know...or care...what a Solar is." The underbrush thing was new. She wasn't sure where it fit in with her holy powers, but Tara couldn't find her, and that was good. "I know that God--"

"Beth, the only one here who has a demon in her is you," Tara said softly. Her gaze finally settled on a spot near the edge of the city. Beth stifled a giggle; Tara was staring at a monkey. "I know that's hard to accept, but it's the same for Buffy. It doesn't make you evil. Killing people makes you evil."

Beth slipped out of the easy concealment and slowly tiptoed her way across the plaza. She'd put the blade through Tara's heart before--

Tara turned to look at her. "I can't see you, but I know you're in there. Tell Beth the truth. Please?"

*****

At the Restful Hills nursing home, Betty Walker's shift was nearly over. She made the rounds, carefully checking each patient. Nearly all were sleeping quietly. She added a dose of medicine to Mary's IV, straightened the sheets on Jacob's recently-vacant bed, and--

The lights were flickering. Betty looked out into the hall. One by one the ceiling lights went out and came on again, as if shadows were hiding someone walking down the hall.

For a moment she considered following the shadows, but that was the sort of thing that got people in movies killed. Instead she rushed to the monitoring station, where the security cameras also flickered on and off, flaring with static. A shadowy figure moved toward the camera, and Betty shied away, then leapt into the air as someone touched her shoulder. "Betty?"

"Sarah! You gave me such a fright. Have you noticed the electronics?"

Sarah nodded. "And Tom is gone."

"Old Tom?" Betty frowned. Young Tom was in his late fifties, with a bad case of early-onset Alzheimer's; Old Tom had lived through the Blitz as a child. He was coherent when he was awake, but that was increasingly rare. The old man was dying, slowly but surely. "Someone took him?"

"You'd think, wouldn't you? But it looks like he just unhooked himself, got up, and left hospital on foot."

"In his gown?" Sarah nodded.

What was going on here?

*****

Faith took Amy by the arm and pulled her up. "Breathe. You can do it. I know, it looks like Mars, but it's not. Or if it is, then Mars is part of the Wyld."

Amy inhaled, and sweet, sweet air filled her lungs. Now she was able to stand. Now she was able to see how Faith knew. In front of them rested a massive clockwork shelter made from pink glass. "Watchmen? We're inside Watchmen?"

"Some fae is telling us a story based on Watchmen," Faith clarified. "Hey! Doctor Manhattan! Get out here!"

"Of course." A blue, not-quite-human figure materialized from the thin air, naked and very clearly unashamed. "You want us to intervene. You want us to save what remains of Creation. So...persuade us."

"Where's Jareth?" Faith asked. "I called the Goblin King, not you."

"The Craven Emperor passed through the Gateway of Sundraprisha eons ago," the blue man said. "In so doing, he ceased to exist, he became Shaped. Many of us did who thought we never would, even the Dragon Coiled Within Herself. And in time, most of us returned, ceasing to be our Shaped selves once more. I remember Jareth, and you, but I am not the Emperor, and yet I am."

"Yeah, like that's clear," Amy muttered.

The ersatz Doctor Manhattan regarded her for a moment. "You reshape others," he said. "I find you amusing. You like to grant wishes. Tell me yours. Not this tedious 'save the world' bit, your personal wishes."

Amy's face grew stubborn for a moment, but her mouth moved on its own. "I wish Faith would let herself be smarter. She could be."

The blue man's mouth flattened as he suppressed a smile. "You don't think she lives up to her potential. But she herself does not wish this. She is content to play the role of dumb brute."

"Hey!" Faith yelled. "I'm not--I--arrgh!" She clutched her stomach and doubled over. Clothes ripped as her body bulked up, adding layer on layer of muscle. Her jaw stretched out, innumerable fangs erupting into view. The lights went out in her eyes, and she snarled and lunged at Amy.

"Damn it, Faith! This just keeps happening! Do you _want_ to keep turning on me or something?" Amy gritted her teeth and released a keening pulse of sound. Faith staggered but kept coming. "Serves me right for making wishes." The blue man had done the opposite of granting hers after forcing it out of her.

Now where the hell had he gone?

*****

 _All right_ , Prudence admitted to herself as multiple semisolid copies of the robot crashed into and _through_ her, _I'm not exactly living up to my name._ Her sisters' lives were at stake. Okay, wonderful, but she didn't seem to be saving them. She reeled backwards and crashed into the wall.

Phoebe leapt forward and drove the sides of her palms into the thing's midsection. That got its attention, at least. It turned to look at her, then tried to swat her away with a flick of its hand. Phoebe ducked beneath the blow and slammed her fists into the robot's chest. Despite its greater mass, the being toppled onto its back.

Phoebe took a moment to examine Paige, who was still out cold. The robot took the same moment to rise in a swarm of microbots and surround her, but when the "bugs" began to sting, Phoebe seized her sister and somersaulted backwards out of the cloud.

A high-pitched shriek rang out, its vibrations disrupting the tiny robots of the swarm, which began trying to recoalesce into a figure holding its ears. "Lorne?" Prudence moved quickly behind the demon. Paige. Paige was finally waking up. That was good.

"Don't suppose you have a moment," Lorne said, though he ought to be ridiculously out of breath. Phoebe was beating on the robot again.

"A moment for what?" Prudence asked. "This tin can is--"

"You want the power to beat it?" Lorne asked hastily.

"Hell yes!" Prudence answered without thinking. Since when did Lorne have the ability to grant powers and why had he waited?

The questions arrived too late for answers. Lorne hit a high note that only crescendoed higher, vibrating until his entire body dissipated into the sound. Prudence's body resonated with the pitch, and the sound came crashing down around her, encasing her in darkness.

*****

Beth lunged at Tara, and Tara slipped aside to the left.

She was like Buffy. An Infernal. If Tara had known what an Infernal was before Buffy, she thought she might have laughed at the irony. Except that Buffy was one of the best people she knew. Beth had probably done something she thought was virtuous--that might even have been righteous in a different context.

Beth nicked Tara with her burning knife again. The first wound itched like crazy already. "Stop making it lie!" Beth screamed. "It's an angel! I saw it! It protected me because I rejected Satan's temptation. You can't tell an angel what to do!"

Temptation. Of course. Beth was just as much a Maclay woman as Tara was. She had the potential. Tara considered being conciliatory; Beth didn't realize that she'd become exactly what she feared. But Beth wouldn't appreciate a lie in any other context, and the truth was what she needed to hear...and Tara had, in her own way, rejected her own power for a good long while. "I can," Tara said. "I can make angels _and_ demons do what I want. So can you." She hesitated a moment, then quoted Scripture. "Don't you know that the Chosen will judge the world? Don't you know that we will judge angels?"

Beth put her hands over her ears, trying not to hear it. Tara wasn't having any of that. She poured more power into her words, her gestures, her _intent_ until a blind woman could have seen it and a deaf man heard it. "I'm willing to forgive what you've done if you'll repent, Beth. I wasn't joking when I said I was queen here." She didn't even have to talk any more to convey her message. "I know how bad our family messed us up." Her left arm stung; she glanced down and saw boils forming near her elbow.

"It's not your place to forgive anything," Beth sneered. "You're not God."

"'I have said, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High,"'" Tara quoted. "'If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came....'" She let that trail off; quoting the Bible was her best shot at reaching Beth, but if she gave her cousin the impression of claiming equality with Jesus her defense would go to pieces fast.

Beth opened her mouth...then dashed forward at incredible speed and drove her blade into Tara's guts.

*****

Amy shoved Faith away from her again, and reached out to her at the same time. They'd been able to communicate despite road noise; they'd even been able to communicate when Amy was a rat. This Unshaped asshole couldn't stop them. "Faith. Listen to me. We're friends. We're lovers. I'll give you whatever you want. There's no need to fight me, not ever."

Faith rolled to her hands and feet...and hesitated.

"If you have to hurt something, hurt the guy who did this to you. He's all around. If you don't...stop. We have work to do."

Faith crouched there on all fours for a moment, listening, perhaps thinking, and then, struggle written in her tense muscles, slowly became herself again. "Hey Doc!" she shouted. "How about we cut you out of this whole thing? Everyone else can help. You sit here in the Wyld with your thumb up your ass."

Q appeared in front of them, or maybe John DeLancie. "Now, now. Let's not be so hasty. All I was looking for was a little amusement. The Wyld is quiet these days." A road stretched through the red dust now, with an old farm shack standing beside it and them. "But we can't leave, not with our full power...or without invitation. Are you inviting us?"

Faith barked a laugh. "Like I'd trust that face _or_ toss out invitations. We have to make a deal. No point trading one apocalypse for another."

"See?" Q said. "You're not so dumb...for a human." He waved a hand, and a table loaded down with food appeared in a flash of light. "Negotiating is hungry work...or so I hear."

Amy's stomach rumbled loudly, but she shook her head. "I know better than to accept food from fairies."

"Suit yourself," Q said.

Faith suddenly put a hand on Amy's shoulder. "Crap. Ames, it's a trick." She grabbed up a plate of chicken and began to devour it. "Amy! Eat something!"

Amy swayed and stumbled forward, her stomach growling. Her arms were slimming down visibly as she moved. She willed a hunk of meat to arc away from the table and into her mouth, but struggled to chew the tough flesh. She staggered weakly toward the table.

Faith crammed a straw into Amy's mouth, still stuffing her own face with her other hand.. Milkshake, or something like it. Just swallowing was an effort. Her legs gave way beneath her; they looked like sticks.

The world went grey.

*****

The mechanical bug clacked its pincers in Harmony's face. "Cannot integrate functionality without your consent," it droned.

Harmony found a spark of resistance. Even the Viator of Nullspace was pressing against the limits of its intellect here. There was no guarantee this would go as it planned, and so it had been laboring on the fix beetle for hours, trying to prepare it to integrate with her Exaltation. It would be a hybrid process, based on the creation of akuma but aimed at replacing a Neverborn patron with a live Primordial one, transforming an Abyssal into an Infernal. It was probably impossible, but if anyone could pull it off, unfortunately, it was the Minister of Wrath.

"Come now, Harmony," the Viator snarled. "How much more punishment can you survive?"

Harmony weighed her options. Supposedly she ought to be spitting in the rogue Minister's face. But if she weighed it rationally....

"All right," she told the beetle. "Fix me."

*****

Beth twisted the blade. She'd intended for Tara to die slowly and painfully from the sickness already spreading through her body, but blood loss and infection would have to be good enough.

 _ **It won't be,**_ said the fiery angel in her head. _**She's tougher than that.**_

Beth scoffed. It was only Tara. But she pulled the knife out and--

A huge coil of muscle wrapped around her arms, pinning them to her body. The serpent hissed at her, and Beth heard, "You tried. You failed. Last chance." Tara coiled around her legs, too, and even around her neck. "I've been very patient, Beth. Now drop the knife or I choke you to death."

Cool, scaly flesh tightened on Beth's throat. She let the knife fall. "All right," she said reluctantly. "I surrender. What do you want me to do instead?"

"There are all kinds of evil things going on, Beth. You can stay here or you can go home, as long as you fight one of them." Snake-Tara's tongue flicked out at Beth's face. "As much trouble as you are, I'd just as soon have you where I can see you."

"I swore an oath to God," Beth protested. "I swore to kill the Maclay witches."

Tara hissed loudly. "Then break it, or die now. Would you keep an oath to kill anyone else?"

She could always try again later. "All right. No more killing witches." Pain wracked her body, and she felt blood trickling from her ears and nose. God was punishing her for breaking her oath. Her skin tore, and blood flowed freely from the wounds.

But she was alive. This wasn't over.

*****

"Stop it!" Faith's boots slammed into Q's face hard enough to send him crashing to the ground. "You're killing her!"

"Death is trivial," Q said raggedly, "except that Creation makes it otherwise." He snapped his fingers, and Amy was restored, standing wide-eyed where she'd fallen.

"This is all just a prank to you," Faith complained. "You named me--I mean, your old self named me--a raksha. But you don't respect me an' you don't respect the negotiations. Why shouldn't we just walk out? You're not gonna settle for anything less than killing Creation your way instead of theirs, are you?"

Q folded his hands. "Why do you think that? Listen to me: Creation fascinates us. It draws us like flies to a candle. And then it kills us, yet we crave it. And fear it. And hate it. And love it. Every deal we ever made with the Exalted ended with Creation consuming more of the Wyld. But now it's been dying for millennia. What will we do when it's gone?

"If you can save Creation, yet make it leave room for us, we will agree. We are willing to share now, but you must also be willing to share. If you only want to save yourselves--just as always--why should we deal? Is it for nothing you called yourself Slayer?"

Amy shook her head furiously, but Faith sighed. "Okay, but no more cheap tricks."

"Tricks?" the raksha said, puzzled.

"Ugh. Gonna be a long day."


	14. Like A Patient Etherized Upon a Table

Mnemon was not having a good day. The Lookshyans, her own soldiers, and the demons were getting on...poorly. Which was likely because the quarters were cramped, even with large numbers of disguised Lookshyan ships in the convoy. The Sidereals had departed to Yu-Shan for training, along with some of the Abyssals, but most of the Anathema remained and were causing tension.

And speaking of Anathema.... "Okay, that's better, Buffy." Manosque Cyan sounded uncharacteristically pleased, as well she should with Buffy's anima swirling around her like a muggy sea breeze. It was a small step forward that Buffy was now able to disguise her Essence as well as her body.

But along with that step forward had come a giant one backward, and what the Ebon Dragon had given, Metagaos threatened to take away. Buffy raised a sandwich to her mouth to discover that her hand had already eaten half of it. The other mouths that were manifesting on her body were disguised, but for food she was holding to vanish gave away the game. Malfeas made it worse: everything was food to Buffy. Her uniform was illusory; her body had devoured her real clothes.

Buffy was at least practicing, so hopefully she would soon master this new ability, but since she was doing so fairly openly, that was producing issues of its own. "You can make a mouth anywhere," Fred said, "and you can make any kind of mouth, so that implies--"

Buffy nodded, and her own natural mouth sprouted into a large, muscular beak like a parrot's. "I can only eat through them, though," she squawked. "I can't talk through the others. Hmm...hey!" Her mouth became a black, slavering, fanged maw, which she opened to reveal a jointed tongue that itself bore another fanged mouth. Xander snickered at this. Mnemon restrained a shudder.

All this tension was aggravated by another factor: there had been no real victory at Lookshy. Quite aside from any strategic considerations, all of them had been worked up by the battle, yet no resolution had followed, and now there was a distinct absence of privacy. The Lookshyans disapproved of orgies, nor did Mnemon consider them good for military discipline under most circumstances. Still, the troops might be approaching the rare conditions when that was the best option.

Still, there was one remaining possibility. "Buffy," she said. The young monarch looked up, quickly wiping away a gaping shark mouth grin. "Have you ever considered teaching the Infernal combat style?" Cearr perked up his ears too at that.

"I...ah, I didn't think anyone else would want to know it. And I've never really been a teacher."

Mnemon considered that. "Try. At the very least, you and Cearr could demonstrate technique." That was what she really wanted. Nothing would ease tensions like watching a pair of Anathema try to kill each other. And who knew? Maybe someone would learn something useful.

"Just the martial art?" Cearr asked. "Well, hell, why not? I'm up for it."

"He just wants to get his mitts on you," Xander said, but he seemed to be joking. Certainly Anja laughed.

Buffy shrugged. "I wouldn't complain if Mnemon doesn't." And she winked at Cearr.

Suddenly Mnemon felt just a little uneasy.

*****

The desert was vast, though not entirely dead. Scrub and sand predominated, but even a few small ragged trees or large bushes jutted from crevices in the rock here and there. Beth Maclay found herself here often now, in her dreams.

Odd that Cousin Tara had told her not to fear it. Why would she fear it?

Sometimes nothing happened, but tonight a bush burst into silver flame as Beth approached it. Quickly she removed her shoes, murmuring, "Speak, Lord. Your servant listens." Early on she had fallen prostrate. but that seemed to annoy the Lord, which was clearly a bad thing.

The fire thrummed at her. Hmm. New. Beth was new. Like Buffy, but unheralded by prophecy. How had she come here?

"I came to find my cousin Tara. You wanted me to destroy the Maclay witches...didn't you?"

A moment of confusion. God could be confused? Yes. Yes, destroy the Maclay woman. A touch of hypocrisy, and yet so much sincere intent. Strange. That should be remedied. Hmm...how best to handle that? Come.

"But I--"

Beth was surrounded by brilliant ice and snow, yet the air was so dry it hurt to breathe. Her body began to convulse at once from the cold. Thunder rose in the distance despite a cloudless blue sky. The horizon...the horizon was filled with a black mass, glossy black on matte, outlining...a beast of some sort. Even at this immeasurable distance its breath was hot. The ice sweated and wept. The wind shrieked. The ground shook. And the thing lumbered closer.

This is Isidoros...Archangel of Might. In him there is no doubt or hesitation, only the act itself.

The beast filled half the sky. How could it not be on top of her already? Isidoros snorted and the ice melted altogether, leaving bare black rock. Beth trembled and half-turned to run.

Fear and be trampled. Fear not and be transfigured. He comes for you.

Shaking, no longer certain if she felt fear or cold or both or neither, Beth stood her ground, and Isidoros' eye met hers. Isidoros' gaze was....

[i]eat/rut/go/drink/rest/fight/build/destroy/play/DO[/i]

She was in the scrublands again. Furnace heat warmed her, yet her muscles quivered still, for action now.

Did Isidoros bless you?

"I...I think so?"

Be not timid. Be not impeded. Act in My Name.

Bundled in sweaty blankets, Beth Maclay awoke.

[B]Chapter 104--Like a Patient Etherized Upon a Table [/b]

The first thing you noticed about the Daystar: it was bright.

Unconquerable Shadow didn't actually have a lot of shadow-based powers, but she could think of several Abyssals and Infernals who would have been totally screwed. Which, really, was obviously the main point.

Even the floor was emblazoned with interlocking golden images of the sun. Murals she didn't understand covered the walls and ceiling. And at the far end of the chamber, an orichalcum door groaned as it rotated, releasing plumes of steam and revealing a great golden throne surrounded by levers, keys, buttons, switches, status lights, dials, toggles, pedals, and every other sort of instrument imaginable. Seated there was a golden-skinned woman with violet hair, who glanced quickly over her shoulder. She didn't even notice Shadow. "Ignis? My Lord?" She almost leapt from the console. "You've returned to us?"

"Yes," the Sun breathed. "Yes, I have returned...once more." The goddess frowned at him curiously, and he darkened the room by hanging his head. "Nysela...I am sorry. I can never fully make it up to you. I will...I will be in the Phyrium. There is a matter of judgement that remains unresolved."

This time Nysela [i]did[/i] jump from her seat, though she blanched and sat back down at once. "Ignis, what are you doing?"

"What must be done. One final sentence must be passed so that the world may live."

Shadow made herself look up at him. "What sentence are we talking about? Cause I got a whole bunch of 'em, starting with some more questions. Like 'Huh?' And 'Who's on trial?' Oh, and...'What do you want [i]me[/i] for?'"

The Sun met her eyes gravely. "The sentence to be passed is mine. And I have brought you here...to execute it."

*****

Faith wriggled up the monkey bars. She was seven years old, lean and fit but hungry. The older kids were neck and neck with her. If she lost they'd make fun of her, then knock her down and take her money. She didn't lose much.

Faith watched from the sidelines. She was nineteen, caged as certainly as if she were behind bars. If she said the wrong things, if she even [i]thought[/i] the wrong things with her other self, she'd forfeit the match.

Of all the identity trials she'd been through so far, the divided consciousness ones were the hardest. It wasn't natural. Hell, it wasn't human! But the Unshaped and the Primordials, they naturally thought this way. Somehow. So maybe it was an attempt to expand her mind.

[i]The ancient Solars did that,[/i] Amy conveyed. [i]I remember it, I think. They had cognition hoods that linked their minds to groups of Third-Circle demons, and eventually sometimes stranger things. Like raksha.[/i]

If they could do it, she should be able to do it. Except she was Faith Lehane from South Boston, not a genius like Willow Rosenberg or Fred Burkle. [i]They[/i] could do it, but not her.

Little Faith was losing ground to an older boy. She turned--grown-up Faith fought not to yell at her, not to think with her thoughts--and punched the boy in the mouth. She was first...and then the older kids turned on her, calling her a cheater and worse things before they stomped her ass.

Grown-up Faith felt every punch, every kick. Bruises and cuts materialized on her body. If she'd been the Slayer, she could've--but she hadn't been. That was the test. Little Faith struggled ineffectively but was finally left bleeding in the playground to limp home and be screamed at.

Then she vanished, and Faith could think with one mind again. She was still bleeding, but she could handle that. She was winning, mostly. When she lost, she technically lost a whole contest, but there were Unshaped all around her looking to negotiate, and that changed things. The identity tests were the second hardest--they'd turned her into a child, a mountain, a dog, a boy, a crowd of people--and forced her to try to hold onto herself. But the worst--

"Very good," the Rani said. "But let us see what you can teach us about this."

Faith was at a desk. In a classroom. Her heart raced; they were going to try one of these again! She failed these! She failed [i]every fucking time[/i]! A teacher strolled around handing out test forms. SATs this time. Crap, this was going to be a disaster. Trying not to hyperventilate, Faith let her head drop to the desk. She was going to just sit here and let it pass. Maybe if she rejected their reality it would count as a win.

The teacher harrumphed at her and looked at his watch. Then he picked up an apple off his desk and peered at it. The apple grew faint, transparent even, and then faded completely into nothing. The teacher waggled his finger at her.

The contests wouldn't kill her, not directly, but...christ on a crutch, every time they shot her or ripped her heart out or turned her into a million bugs, it [i]hurt[/i]. This time if she lost.... Faith dug the heels of her hands into her eyes till she saw stars, then opened them up and stared at the first question. Something about South America.

There had to be a way to do this. [i]Harmony[/i] could do it, could pull information out of nowhere with her Exaltation somehow. There had to be a way.

Faith picked up her pencil and began to mark answers.

*****

Wiping blood from her mouth, Kate gunned the hovercraft rotors and the transport shot into the sky. With a bit of planning and a bit of luck they'd caught one on the ground and now it was full of very, very green Terrestrials.

"Are you sure you can fly this thing?" Shoat asked.

"No!" Kate said with a grin as the craft wobbled toward the floating city. "Can you?"

"Too short," Shoat grumbled. "Do you really think the two of us and some wet-behind-the-ears Dragon-Blooded can beat a living city?"

Kate shrugged. "As long as it doesn't set off any blink-bombs." Shoat looked blank. "Sorry, old story. I don't know, honestly. But I intend to go down trying. Don't you?"

Shoat nodded as seriously as only a tween superhero could. "That's my job."

Kate aimed for the city and prayed. [i]Someone[/i] had to be listening.

*****

Tara woke up vomiting her guts out.

The rash had spread and grown worse. There were blisters all up and down her sides and arms, and the wounds themselves were raw and weeping. It looked like the stuff Buffy had shaken off just as they caught up to her. That had been a supernatural form of radiation sickness, apparently. Tara thought she ought to be able to shake it off, but it wasn't going to be easy.

Her hair was full of vomit and she was lucky she slept on her side, or she might have choked on the stuff. Reluctantly she transformed, ridding herself of the yucky stuff as easily as changing clothes. The blisters didn't go, though. Beth wouldn't know a cure; she wasn't interested in healing witches, only killing them.

She staggered into the next room, ignoring Raksi's kitchen, which would only make her feel sicker. Beth was up, and...she was working out? Beth never worked out; it was unladylike. But she was there beating up a makeshift punching bag she seemed to have put together from waterskins.

"I couldn't get back to sleep," Beth said without really looking back. "I just feel too full of energy to not be up and doing things. I--" She had finally turned around. "You don't look so good."

"I don't feel good either," Tara admitted. "But I'm a Lunar. Surviving is what we [I]do[/i]."

"If anyone I've cut with that knife survived, I don't know about it," Beth admitted casually. "I didn't really get upset about it. They're part demon, you know, and I thought you and your friends killed demons."

Tara shook her head firmly. "It's not as simple as that, and even if it were, Beth, that's a lie the Maclays have been handing down for a long time. We're not part demon, at least not any more than anyone else. And our men aren't any less powerful than our women. They just say their power comes from God." A wave of nausea and weakness washed over her, and she stumbled against the wall.

Beth frowned skeptically, because of course she took that as a sign that Tara had trouble with the name of God. But she sounded more troubled than triumphant. "Isidoros isn't actually an archangel, is he? They're trying to keep the lie going, aren't they?"

"No, Beth. He's one of the Yozis. I mean...if there's one God, out there behind everything, then maybe the Primordials were manifestations of him once, but they're fallen. They're demon lords, the most powerful ones there are."

"Then there's nothing holy about my powers. Or even about Buffy's powers. And...and I'm a murderer." Beth looked as if she wanted to sit down, but there weren't any chairs in here. "But I don't understand what makes me different from Buffy, then."

Tara started to say, "Buffy kills demons." Then she started to say, "The demons Buffy kills are real demons," but she couldn't actually prove that to Beth, could she? Nor could she even say for sure that "Buffy only kills real threats." Finally she settled for, "Some of it's complicated, and some of it I can't prove to you right now. I'm sorry. I know that's sort of a letdown."

"Thanks a lot," Beth muttered.

"I really would like t-to...help you find some c-clarity," Tara told her. "But right now I d-don't have a lot to offer. Buffy tries not to kill humans, and she tries not to kill anyone who isn't endangering people. But she got a lot of her early information from the Watchers' Council, and then they turned out not to be all that trustworthy."

Beth began punching the bag again, harder and harder. Tara watched for a moment and then said, "You know. there's real gym equipment in one of the old buildings. It's even in pretty good shape. This used to be a school. You could learn just about anything you want here, too."

Beth stopped and turned. "I'm not surprised to find you at a college this time. Show me."

*****

Faith scrawled out figures on the tablecloth. Bullshit, it was all bullshit. The sum of the series added up to 3-and-a-quarter. The cosine of the angle was--

"Time."

How long had she been working on this crap? It felt like forever. And now time stuttered forward and she was standing in a line to get her results. Buffy popped open the envelope in her hands; Faith remembered she'd had this great bullshit score even though she never studied, never had the time. Because she was smarter than white trash Faith Lehane. Because--

Because she was the Slayer, was Exalted and didn't even know it. And Faith was just as good as she was. Faith tore the envelope in half and read the numbers. "Combined score of seventeen-forty...?"

That was impossible. That was [i]better than Buffy[/i]. It was some kind of fae trick. Had to be. Willow's jaw was hanging slack. Buffy slung her arm over Faith's shoulder, spun her around, and kissed her hard on the lips.

Faith pushed her away, not hard, but firm. "Sorry, B. I'm taken."

[i]You didn't have to do that. It's not real, and you'd have been thrilled back then.[/i]

The past melted away. She and Amy were sitting together on a bed in a hotel room. Everything was white or gold but the tv screen. "They giving us a break?" Faith asked doubtfully.

"Nah," Amy said. She pointed to the glossy black slab across the room from them. "I'm guessing the point of this scene is that we're baby Gods and they want to know what we'll do with it."

Faith remembered the monolith movie. "Ah, got it. Never saw this one." She got up and opened the door. A hall full of doors stretched out to a vanishing point in the distance. "I guess we're stuck being Norse gods for now. Ragnarok an' all that. Greek gods would be more fun."

"You haven't read enough about Loki," Amy said, "but I s-s-seee-e-e your point and whoa, I hope they're not taking what we say as a suggestion."

"What if they are?" Faith asked dismissively. Warmth was spreading through her body, too. "We give 'em a show."

"What's the test, though?" Amy asked pointedly. "There's some trick to it, surely."

Faith shrugged. "Yeah, well, it's your turn to figure it out." She peeled off her shirt. "Your call."

*****

The obsidian walls of the vast chamber were lighting up slowly, molten orichalcum trickling through the cracks. The ceiling was lost in the distance, though flickering strands of light shimmered overhead. The Sun strode without concern over an invisible floor, beneath which raged infinite flame.

From the unseen rafters, five women descended to block his path. "Please," Venus begged. "Not now. Not yet."

Saturn's features were lost in her cowl, but it rippled as she shook her head. "What must be, must. Still, I do not relish this. I regret it, sister."

Ignis Divine regarded them with a look of infinite sorrow, then turned to Shadow. "Buffy, you may have heard tales of my creation. How the Primordials conceived of and constructed me, each according to their talents. You may even have heard that I was the idea of the Ebon Dragon--light to reveal his darkness and make him real. And why not? Victory, freedom from all limitations--these things that he craves are my birthright."

Shadow shook her head. "Nope. I hadn't heard. But tell me all the juicy details."

"Alas, such a tale would take more time than we have. But the tales omit one thing that has been forgotten on purpose, hidden by the darkness. The Shadow of All Things contributed more than an idea." The Sun pulled his robe aside from his chest, which shone with a transcendant light that rendered it transparent. "Behold my secret shame." Within the Sun, where his heart should have been, nestled...an infant, sleeping? "Innocence Betrayed, fetich soul of the Ultimate Darkness. The wellspring of my life. And for it to perish...so also must I die."


	15. Gnosis Descending

Yu-Shan was glorious; Yu-Shan was a decrepit ruin. Rupert Giles wanted to weep for joy and sorrow.

"Even more than Anya, we have to get you up to speed," Ayesha Ura declared. "I'm not sure I even understand how you exist. The Five-Score Fellowship is...five score."

"We're from an alternate universe," Cordelia explained, her eyes wide as the words fell from her lips. "Like an alternative possibility from the Wyld, or a mirror-world of Kagami. Since our world is complete within itself, it has its own set of Exaltations, most of which were imprisoned a long time ago. The Sidereal ones are seeking out the hosts they _should_ have had. Wow, like...how do I know this stuff?"

"Even for Sidereals, Excellencies are near-instinctive," Ahn-Aru explained. "You're drawing information--especially about things you already have some understanding of--out of the Tapestry of Fate and possibly out of Samsara itself."

"And that made sense, too," Cordelia agreed, an appalled expression on her face. "Oh, god, I'm turning into a metaphysics geek!" Wesley tried not to grin as she felt through her hair and checked for glasses. Giles had no such difficulty, of course. "Wait, am I going to start looking at girls now?" Iron Siaka--Giles could remember her clearly now--snickered.

"It would seem that I never purged your last incarnation's memories," Lytek informed her. "Details may take some time to filter through your consciousness, but any deep structural changes to your mind have already occured. So, no, you are not going to become bisexual now--you already have or have not." Cordelia swallowed hard. Giles just sighed. He'd known about his own weakness for the occasional bad boy since Ethan and had no interest in Cordelia's whining.

"It's a bit more complex than that," Ahn-Aru began, but Giles ignored her as well. A smiling brunette was approaching him.

"Shaia," she said. "And you must be Rupert. I'm here to help you focus your past life recollections and make use of them. Buried somewhere within you are memories that go all the way back to the High First Age. If you're anything like Anya, you'll have a real talent for remembering that era's technology, what with the considerable advances you have on this world."

"I must confess I've never been known for my technical skills," Giles said, "but perhaps you're right. Still, I'm more anxious about the disturbing content of these memories than about making use of them."

"Hmm," Shaia said, "I believe I can help with that as well, if you'll let me."

The trancing was an easy matter, being one of the fundamental principles of mystic practice, and in a minute or two, Giles was in a state of deep relaxation, diving into a set of memories he'd never had before. He stood near the summit of a mountain that scraped at the sky, looking down on a vast, ragged crowd, and beyond that the ruins of a shattered city. Even in death, Meru outshone London as London outshone the primitive squalor of Gem. Its crystal-and-metal spires lay broken beyond repair.

Past that...past that the world was shrinking. The Blessed Isle lay submerged beneath the Inner Sea save for this peak. A rush and roar accompanied a worse collapse still. Facing west, Giles could see the ocean pouring off the world's edge as that boundary contracted toward Mount Meru. To her right she could glimpse shattering ice sheets blowing into infinite wind as snow; on her left, the desert dissolved into fire. Dead leaves blew over her shoulders like dust. "Everyone keep order!" she shouted. "Stay together! Try to remain calm! Help is coming!"

One brilliant star was growing, hurtling toward the shrinking remnant of Creation--no, a comet, tail burning behind it. Rescue would arrive in moments for at least some of the last survivors.

But not for Creation. The Anathema had destroyed it.

The Anathema Buffy Summers.

**Chapter 105--Gnosis Descending**

Samantha Carter felt as if the midnight-black aura that cloaked the President, leaving furrowing shadows on her forehead and the gleam of fangs on her lips should have frightened her, but what was that to the steady drumbeat of exploding stars that flared around Carter herself? More than ever, she was glad she'd refused the Deathlord's offer, considering how dangerous she felt _right now_.

The communication device she'd cobbled together tied into the cell phone network using these aura flares somehow, but the side effect was that their holographic images were continually surrounded by their own banners while the connection remained. "So far I can't claim any progress on a weapon against these 'Alchemical Exalts'," she said regretfully. "Their energetic basis is virtually indistinguishable from ours. We'd be killing ourselves."

"I noticed that little word 'virtually'," Colonel O'Neill said, a bald eagle rising behind him. "That means there _is_ a difference. It's just a small one." He held up the his fingers to demonstrate.

"There's a _large_ difference between adults and children," Sam pointed out, "but no one's ever designed a gun that can kill adults and leave childen alone." The colonel cringed as if she'd struck a very painful nerve.

"Aim high?" the POTUS said, and it was Sam's turn to wince. She hadn't seemed as insensitive during the election--which admittedly had been a whirlwind of absolute chaos. Maybe the colonel had lost someone; she'd have to find out.

"The point is that I can't think of a way to make such a weapon discriminate between Exalts," Carter said, trying to regain the upper hand. "I'm not entirely sure I could make it work at all. It'd produce some very exotic radiation, and require some very strange components."

"What else have we got?" President Morgan glanced over at the faintly-shimmering, faintly-humming mound of green flesh pierced by red thorns--or were they horns? "Can she hear us in there?"

"Dunno," Piper said. Behind her grey-and-purple energy field, the environment lagged, froze, and skipped like a bad dial-up connection. "Can't hurt, can it? Maybe she'll wake up in the loop."

"The Holtzes are no longer hurting us," Phoebe put in, "but I don't know how to get them to coordinate with us. They're just attacking cyborgs at random." Her aura simply shone a continuous sky-blue. "Ideas?"

O'Neill flicked a finger at Paige, who was wrapped in a string of brilliant white orbs. "He's a vampire hunter. The Watchers help vampire hunters. You tried getting in touch with him?"

"We're a _teeny_ bit short on connections with a guy from several hundred years ago," Paige pointed out. "And I don't think he wants to be contacted by a Maclay witch."

"Sic that Travers guy on him," the colonel suggested.

Lilah began to snicker. "Could work. And I like the image. Ask him, Paige. Tell him it's a presidential request."

Paige shrugged. "I'll put it on my to-do list. Madam President, I think it might be more important to bring up the Cruciamentum toxin. We've used a low dosage to depower Slayers gradually for millennia. A high dosage could be the genie bottle you're looking for."

Lilah sat up straighter. "Where's it produced? How's it produced? How much can you make at once?"

"Dunno," Paige said. "Council secrets. I shouldn't have told you this much, but times have changed."

The Chief of Staff--Sam was sure her name had been mentioned--leaned over Lilah's shoulder and murmured something. The POTUS smiled thinly despite the sickly green aura impinging on her own.

"What about Buffybot?" Oz asked, silvery light illuminating a shadowy, howling wolf. "If we got her to Autochthon's Core--"

"How?" Carter asked. "Isn't it buried in the deepest part of him?"

"I can do it," Gwen Raiden said, her voice crackling with static from the electrical sparks that danced continually around her now. "My girls and I can damp the Great Maker's power and get in that way. I guarantee it."

"Autochthon's power is more than electrical," Beneficent Sanguine Messenger warned. "It goes deeper. Lightning is only a manifestation." Smoke hung around her like a dense cloud that blocked even the brightest light.

"Can you guide them?" O'Neill asked.

"I'm not sure I can even trust myself," Messenger warned. "Most of Autochthon's champions have been twisted into his enemies. I'll try, but you've got to realize that I could go Apostate at any time. You can't trust me."

"We'll send a team," the Chief of Staff suggested. "I volunteer." This time it was Messenger who flinched. "I'll bring you back all safe," the Chief of Staff said, wheedling. Did she know the cyborg woman somehow? "If you fall, I shall catch you."

"I'm not sure how reassured I am by that," Messenger said.

"You shouldn't be," the dainty woman said, "but you shall be, when the time comes. I swear it."

*****

"They say Celestials like us shouldn't even bother with Terrestrial martial arts." Ayesha Ura smirked at Cordelia. "I say they're wrong. They're weaker. There are situations where they're inadequate. But someone has to teach the Terrestrials. And a true master is extremely versatile. Such fighting styles use little Essence, since they're optimized for people who don't have much."

Cordelia blushed faintly. "I'm not exactly a master martial artist."

"For a mortal, actually, _you were_. Mortal practicioners outnumber Exalted ones only because mortals outnumber Exalts. Magical martial arts are extremely difficult for mortals. You learned one up to the form at--twenty? And you're not a street brawler like your Solar friend. Athletic, yes, but not much more. So you were starting from almost nothing." Ayesha sat down in front of her, still smiling. "I'm told one of the Bronzes gave you a hard time. There will be no more of that. You'll get assignments commensurate with your abilities, and in these hard times they will be hard assignments. But no hazing."

"Is that just because I'm an Exalt now?" Cordelia sipped the glass of--was this a soda? Seriously, here?

"Sadly, mostly yes," Ayesha said, "but you can help us reform the Bureau's attitude toward mortals. Detachment is a necessity when you manage fate; sadism is not. Now, quickly--you're a Chosen of Battles. Can you tell me why?"

Cordelia snorted. "Easy. I'm from Sunnyhell." Ayesha lifted an eyebrow. "Same little town as Buffy. Somehow I got tangled up with her, and next thing you know I'm helping her fight monsters. It took me a while to be any good at it, but I was starting to not be totally useless."

"Can you fight with a sword?"

"Better than most people from my world."

"Then you have one up on me, believe it or not. Beating on people is something of a bore. Right now, we have other things to do." Ayesha gathered herself to touch Cordelia's mind. If it was a strange as Anya's, this would be...an experience, to say the least.

"So we're going to mind-meld." Cordelia made a strange face. "Ok, I can handle this. Bring it on."

*****

"The Lookshyans will be striking at Gethamane," Mnemon said, "together with Willow, Fred, and hopefully Tara. Their expertise will doubtless be needed to get the devices there working." She carefully did not say "led by Willow," which would put their hackles up. "Alexander is going to join the Roseblack's forces to take the Lap, with the aid of Sulumor and Cearr. Buffy and I will be infiltrating the Imperial City itself. Cyan, you and the Sidereals will be with us. We still have several more Celestials to situate. I'm open to suggestions."

"Someone who can do stealth would be nice," Alexander pointed out. "Anja, if Anya's with Buffy, do you mind?"

The catlike Lunar smiled warmly. "Of course not."

"Won't Willow's team need at least one stealthy guy?" Devon asked. "I can manage that and still pack a punch."

"Done," Willow agreed. "Buffy, assuming they get back in time, you want Son of Crows and Meticulous Owl?"

"The Moonshadows? Sure, they can handle it, and we're liable to need the biggest team." She looked around. "Gunn, what about you?"

"Might as well check out Gethamane, if it's okay with Kenda."

Everyone stared at him. "You want _her_?" Anja asked. "She's...she's a cold-blooded Abyssal killer."

"We've all done our share of killing," Gunn reminded her. "She's clawing her way back, impossible as it sounds, an'...I think she's got a thing for me."

The Roseblack began to laugh quietly. "Be very careful, Charles Gunn. But yes, by all, means, keep her close. You'd be surprised how well such tactics have worked with the Vermillion Legion." The Red Piss Legion, they called it, because it had once been full of cowards, screw-ups, and malcontents, but Tepet Ejava had turned it into a lean, powerful fighting force. Those who could be taught discipline, by whatever means, had learned it, and Mnemon respected that.

"The raksha is not coming with us," Karal Linwei said firmly. "Who wants it?"

Buffy gave a faint smile. "Dawnie, want to be the first raksha on the Blessed Isle?"

*****

Ahn-Aru yawned. There was no chance of this one joining the Bronze Faction, not without careful preparation. His entire job premise was that he trained Anathema, whether he had understood what they were or not.

To her surprise, he noticed the slight, despite being barely more than mortal. "I recognize that my less-than-stellar early record in the field may put you off, but I was recounting how my work as a rogue demon hunter helped restore my confidence and prepared me for greater things."

Sad Ivory's eyes widened. " _You_ hunted down rogue demons?"

Wesley coughed and used the opportunity to cover a chuckle. "I'm afraid you've run across an old joke. I was the rogue; there are no 'official' demons on my world. Or to put it another way, they are all rogue."

"Are they common, then?" Odd. How had so many come there without a summons? Or was it simply that many had escaped and few been returned?

"Locally. They hide among the general population, or in secret places such as the sewers, old bunkers, abandoned buildings...." He made some expansive gestures. "In theory, the Slayer should dispose of them all. In practice, we have to prioritize the more dangerous types."

"Mm. To my way of thinking that seems wasteful. Yet, in the absence of Exalted I see how trying to make them serve you would fail." Ahn-Aru considered her growing pile of paperwork. "Best we get this done." There was some chance he would serve her interests.

"It has been tried," Wesley agreed, "and yes, it has always failed. It's a wonder we got as much loyalty from the Slayer as we did. Certainly mine was willful and hard to control."

"You caught them young," Sad Ivory mused. "But even a child Exalt is not easily controlled. I'll tell you some time soon about the contortions the Realm has had to go to to keep Dragon-Blooded children in line. Their parents can't watch them at all times."

"Alas," Wesley mused. "If only I'd known how for Faith."

"Next time you will."

*****

"You think you can keep me here."

Riley leaned forward. "I think you're _Tara_. I think somewhere deep inside, you don't want to be hurting people."

The cyborg regarded him with disdain, but it was wearing Tara's face again. "If I were a vampire, would you still be saying that?" It rattled the containment cell with a blow to the reinforced plexiglass door.

"You're not a vampire," Riley said, leaning casually back in his chair. "If anything, you're the opposite. You explicitly told us you have her soul."

"It's been a long time since I was the girl you remember," TARA reminded him. "I've spent dozens of lifetimes while the world died and was reborn. That was a mistake. Nature hates us. She always has."

"You don't really believe that," Sam Finn argued. "Tara was never like that. Sometimes nature hurts, but it's not about malice."

TARA scoffed. "We took what we needed so our kids wouldn't die, and Gaia punished us for it. How dare we burn coal so we don't freeze in the winter? How dare we grow enough food to eat? She's killing you for that. It's not greed to want to live, to want your kids to live. But if she's going to torture us for it, then better we all just die. And better she die with us for being such a hateful bitch. Not about malice my ass. My human self was stupid, that's all." Her hand dispersed into particles and probed for a gap, but Riley knew she wouldn't find one. Wolfram and Hart, whatever else could be said about them, did good work.

"The Neverborn will mean the end of everything," Sam said quietly.

"Good riddance," TARA insisted.

"Ri, I'm not sure there _is_ anything left of her." Sam got to her feet. "We've got her contained. Let's go get some work--"

A pulse of force slammed her to the floor. Riley was halfway to his feet when a fist collided with the back of his skull and sent him reeling across the room. "It's about time you got here," the Architect said.

Itinerant Analog Calculatrix shrugged. "You had to go and get yourself captured. Don't go blaming me for it." She popped the lock.

*****

"Tara? Are you--?"

Tara stopped scratching and looked up. A wad of hair came away with her hand. "I'm getting better, Beth. I promise." She'd stopped vomiting, for one thing. She still looked awful, but she was on the mend. "It's hard to believe, I know."

Beth finished putting together her sandwich and took a huge bite before responding. "I finally managed to get some sleep, but now I'm up and going again, and...it's really hard to stop. I ate, and then I did some sculpting, and now I'm eating again."

"Hungry?" Tara said before recalling that Beth wouldn't get, or appreciate, the joke. _Especially_ if it was happening to her. "Beth, listen to me on this. Buffy found this out the hard way. You can't back away from these things. You just have to learn to counter them, so you can stay in control."

Beth held up a stone sculpture of Christ with his foot on a demon's back. "It could be worse," she said.

"Just remember that power can't make you evil," Tara warned. "Only the way you use it. I can't teach you how to be an Infernal, but I can at least try to teach you how to be an Exalt."

"That sounds like a...convenient way of looking at things," Beth grumbled. She began stuffing her face with the sandwich. "Does...self-control...at least matter?"

"Of course it does. But it's more important to remember that you heal whenever you need to, create when you can, and don't destroy unless you have to," Tara told her. "Buffy's still having trouble with the idea that she can just...m-make things happen. But she can. You can."

"I don't... _should_ I? If the Yozis are demons...." Of course that was still weighing on her, and Tara still wasn't sure how to deal with it in the long run. If Beth believed her powers were evil, she wouldn't use them. She might even kill herself. But if she went back to believing she had a mission from God....

"Then their powers came from God. Right? If they're rebels against God, then their powers are stolen, and it's not theft to take them back." At any moment Beth might call her out as a liar or a fool. "Do you have faith, Beth? Do you really?"

"I...." Beth knelt down and closed her eyes. Maybe she was praying. And around her, grass and vines and branches sprouted from the floor, bursting through the brittle, ancient tile, climbing the tables and chairs, coiling around the instruments. If she hadn't been an Exalt herself, Tara would've been tripped up by it, but she moved easily over the foliage and crouched down by her cousin.

"You're doing it," she said. "You're doing this with your faith." It wasn't even really a lie; Beth couldn't have done it if she didn't believe she could. Still, the plants were grey and strangely...flabby. She decided not to point this out. If she kept shaking her cousin's faith, sooner or later something was liable to fall.

*****

Amy rose on wobbly knees and stumbled toward Faith. Being an animal was _not_ good for her confidence or sense of self. Faith wasn't looking much better; she was kneeling, staring blankly at the ground with an empty circle gleaming on her forehead.

"It's pretty," Faith said vacantly. "It shines."

"Faith? What shines?"

"Magic." The other girl looked up at Amy, grinning almost beatifically. Something had to be wrong; that wasn't like Faith. Of course Faith had never been squeamish about what tools she used; she had no fear of magic and was pretty good with it in a practical sense, despite not being able to actually cast. "You're all green and silver. It's pretty."

"Umm...yeah, my aura--"

"Numbers," Faith said, still smiling. "I've never been any good with numbers. Three point three one six six two four seven. It's the square root of eleven. But not really."

"Faith. Listen, we're negotiating, not doing math." Faith squinted at her. "You're still in there, right?"

"I believe she's merely overloaded herself," said the little floating man in the bowler hat. "Give her a moment to--"

Amy wrapped a telekinetic grip around the raksha's throat. "Listen here, Mxyzptlk. Maybe she's fine and maybe she's not. If she's not, I'm going to rip you a new one. Either way, negotiations are closed! We're leaving, and if you try to stop us I'm gonna weave this place solid with you still here. What do you think that'll do to you?"

"You need us!" the little imp wheezed.

"Not like this," Amy snapped back. "All you've been doing is jerking our chains. We can win this without you, and when we do we'll be back to start formatting this place for nuclear waste disposal and carbon sequestration. How's that sound? We'll turn your natural habitat into the ultimate garbage dump!"

"Please," the little man whimpered, "all we wanted was to show you what we had to offer. Dreams beyond your wildest dreams!"

"We don't need your dreams," Amy said, tightening her grip. "We need your armies. And then we do need use of the Wyld to rebuild. You can give that...or we can take it. Your choice."

"No more than a hundred thousand square miles a year," the raksha argued. "And you allow the Shaped to visit all your lands freely."

Amy was about to turn him down when Faith said, "That's bigger than the whole UK." Could they even make that much in a year?

"No conquering our land," Amy said. "This is just to kick out the robot soldiers. If you're good with that, it's a deal."

"You must carry a sign of our presence," the little man said. "But if one of you does this, we will all swear the oath."

A sign of their presence? What did he mean by that? But they needed to conclude this thing and get back to the war. "Done," Amy said. "Let's all swear."


	16. In the Real World As In Dreams

Prudence's eyes were gummy, and she tried to reach up and rub them, but something was in the way. Something that was also gummy. She tried harder to raise her hands, and the gum gave way. Then there was a tougher membrane, but that too tore, spilling her out onto the tiled floor. She remembered dreaming, dreaming of music and silence. Music was good. She wiped the goop from her eyes. Everything here was white.

"Hi." Standing in front of her was a little girl, cute and innocent and playing with a crystalline chess set decorated with skulls. "My name is Mesekhtet. Please don't call me Messy. I don't like it. We had some of your things brought here for safekeeping while we waited for you. I do like the horns."

Prudence felt the skin of her face until she encountered the irregular rips at her temples. Little nubs of horns poked through there, small but sharp. "Have I got a mirror?"

An item on the table wrenched its way up and flew at her. She snatched it from the air; it was a hand mirror from her bathroom. The horns were red, like Lorne's. What had happened to Lorne?

_**I'm right here with you, Imprudence. You made the call, I'm not saying it was the wrong one, but this is gonna take some getting used to. For both of us.** _

Prudence frowned at the table. Toiletries, some changes of clothes, her purse. "Lipstick," she said, and held out her hand. A tube came flying into her grasp. _It is, but I think I'm going to enjoy it. Except maybe having a man in my head._

The voice in her thoughts seemed to shrug. _**It's all relative, and don't worry that I'll be upset about looking fabulous, Patience.**_

She tried to lean on the table, but it must have been awfully delicate. Cracks spread out from her palm, and she quickly stood up straight. "Careful," Mesekhtet warned. "There are many ways in which you don't yet know your own strength. Try to take it easy on the things around you."

"I'm trying," Prudence said. There was an aura of power around her. Of...gravity. "Everything feels so fragile. Shoes." A pair of spike-heeled shoes flew at her.

"Sexy, but impractical," said the little girl. "Don't fret. I'm no child, not really."

Prudence put the right shoe on anyway. As she lifted her left foot to put the other shoe on, there came a sudden whoosh-thump from the floor as she sank. Glancing down, she saw that the heel had pierced straight through the floor. "I did warn you," Mesekhtet said. "Those aren't suitable for one empowered by Isidoros. The sheer mass of--"

"It's not polite to talk about a woman's weight," Prudence grumbled. "Um. Flats." Another pair of shoes flew into her hands. "I could get used to this."

"As well you should," Mesekhtet said, smiling. "Do you like power?"

"I've always wished I had more of it," Prudence agreed.

"Well, then you're in a great deal of luck," said the girl. "Listen to your coadjutor. He can see the controls."

_Lorne?_

_**The kiddo's not kidding. Take a deep breath,**_ he said, _**and run.**_

Prudence finished putting on her shoes and ran till the wind in her face started to feel comfortable. Till it started to feel like part of her. And then things _really_ got weird.

**Chapter 106--In the Real World As In Dreams**

"I'm going to kill him," Amy snarled.

"Stay chill, Ames," Faith warned. "We need him a while longer. Besides, we swore, right?" The dull clop of hooves on asphalt resounded.

"Nobody said anything about oaths making babies," Amy said, hand on her belly.

"It wasn't cool," Faith agreed, "but you get rid of the pregnancy, you get rid of the oath. At least let it wait till after the war ends?" Amy finally nodded, eyes still narrowed, the fire on her forehead still burning bright. "I didn't exactly get out of this cheap either." She leaned far back, reached a hand back further, and smacked the horse rump that had once again replaced her ass.

"At least you're used to it," Amy said with a sigh. Ahead of them, the lights of Saint Louis flickered fitfully in the twilight.

"Yeah," Faith said, "and I gotta say Leviathan did have a point. Why do I care what people think? Hell, there's an apocalypse goin' on, what've they got to complain about a centaur being here to fix things? Course, there's a spot back there I'd be happier if I could reach..."

"You've got a girlfriend for that," Amy said, and leaned against her side.

"I for one am happy to see you embrace your heritage," said the man trailing behind them. He was gangly with close-cropped black hair and a strong nose.

Faith groaned, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The raksha chuckled. "Is it unclear? Faith, I am your father. Well...in a previous life--"

Her fist in his face rocked his head back. Her fist in his gut doubled him over. "I've always wanted to do that to my father."

The stranger struggled out a laugh. "Human relationships. So tumultuous. So much fun."

"You wanna find out what else I've always wanted to do to my dad? Hang around." Fairh spun around and raised a back leg as if to kick. "It'll do a lot more damage to your junk this way, so thanks."

"No, no, I'm done. I'll be back with our cataphracts but not otherwise, if that's how you feel." He opened the door of a tall blue...telephone booth, evidently--Faith saw the words "Public Call"--and vanished inside.

"That was your dad?" Amy said, her voice very carefully kept level. "I can relate." When Faith glanced back, the booth was gone.

"I know you can," Faith said. "This is gonna take hours. I need you to ride me."

Laughing, Amy climbed onto Faith's back, and they shot into the air together.

*****

Blasts of water shorted out electronics in all directions, and cybernetic zombies fell with dodder tangled through their systems. Kate clawed her way through a barricade that had erupted from nowhere, and Shoat rode atop her own undead creations' shoulders.

The trouble was, they were up against more than an army. Doors slammed in their faces. The ground shook, and artillery sprouted from the walls without warning. The city itself was alive and opposed to them. If they were making progress toward the city's heart, it was painfully slow.

Green light shone down around them, and Kate looked up to see a sphere hanging above them, impossibly close, and on its surface a great emblem of a circle sandwiched between two lines. Wait...what? A beam of green energy shot down directly in front of her, detonating a weapons stockpile and the cyborgs racing in and out of it.

"Do we need to go?" Shoat asked. She too was staring at the world hanging above them, though without comprehension of its identity.

Kate knew what it was; it was merely impossible to believe. "Nah. It's just a living planet. We're Exalted. Besides, there are probably people still alive in the Big Apple down there. We don't want this place crashing on them." To her band of Terrestrial deputies, she called, "Anybody who knows what that is, for Mogo's sake don't explain! We'll tell everyone about it after we kick the damn floating city's ass!"

*****

Suddenly it had all gone to hell, and now he of all people was pinned down outside Stonehenge. Quentin Travers hadn't been involved in combat since his brief tenure on a retrieval team, when a Slayer had been called in the nightmarish landscape of North Vietnam. The Council had done its best-- _he'd_ done his best, he was certain--but the Slayer's legs had been ruined by a landmine and he'd been forced to put her out of her misery. She might have lived, but who could fight demons from a wheelchair?

Afterwards he'd been retired to advisory duty. No one wanted to risk letting him into the field again, supposedly emotionally compromised, so he'd risen as an administrator instead. But sometimes ceremony and ritual were called for, and Travers had arrived at the stone circle just in time to have it erupt with monstrous cyborgs.

Travers fired off his shotgun and reloaded, though it didn't seem that the huge shell had done any real harm. The undead ones took little notice of damage, and the living ones hardly seemed to suffer damage at all.

"Quentin?"

Travers nearly jumped out of his skin. "Tom? What are you doing here, old man?" Tom had been a distinguished fellow in his day, but he'd grown weak and weary with age. Those infernal books hadn't helped, though they'd come only after his formal retirement. Poor Tom could hardly speak his name without producing scandalized laughter.

"I came to find _you_ , my boy! Things have changed!" Tom lifted his hand, and a burst of energy like green lightning blasted the nearest cyborg off its feet. "Ha! Take that, Huns!" Travers blinked. Old Tom was plainly still himself, still _old_ , but the wrinkles suddenly seemed a facade, a thing of his surface only. "Come on! Let us find cover and regroup! These damned berks are sturdy, aren't they?"

Arguing, Travers decided, would be foolish.

*****

Samantha Carter stood up. It didn't seem as if it should be such a big accomplishment, but days ago she'd been in a coma so deep she was nearly declared brain dead. Aside from an occasional tremor, the weakness in her limbs had evaporated. "I wouldn't call it a superweapon," she said. "It's a gravitational-lensing soliton wave generator."

She lifted the oversized rifle--that gleaming-mirror metal surface wouldn't last long in the field, but it looked impressive--and fired a bubble of warped space at one of the myriad enemy craft that swarmed overhead. All engines still blazing, the craft plummeted uncontrollably to the ground and exploded.

"Nice," O'Neill and the POTUS said together. They glanced at each other before Morgan turned to point at a cloudbank. "Will it take out flying monkeys?" she asked.

"Flying monkeys?" Carter repeated. "I...don't see why not." Sure enough, a gaggle of winged pseudo-primates was emerging from the clouds to swarm the enemy fighters.

"Okay," O'Neill said. "Then aim carefully before you fire at will, cause I think they're on our side."

*****

TARA and Calculatrix stepped over the prostrate forms of the Terrestrials, making their way to the door. "They don't understand what's at stake," TARA said. "The universe can finally be at peace, and all they think of is fighting back."

Calculatrix nodded. "No more wasteful fighting between humans and demons...or humans and humans. 'Even the weariest river/winds somewhere safe to sea.'"

"Nothing can stop us now," TARA agreed. "Destiny is on our side." She opened the door and found three women blocking their path. Again. She snorted and began a derisive comment.

"I'd like to test that theory," said Piper, and blew her up.

*****

Buffybot was getting suited up. "'Twould be a pity," Drusilla said, "if some Chosen thought to slay a god and aimed at the machine."

"I'm not used to wearing armor," Buffybot said. "I haven't trained with it and it's not in my programming."

"You'll be okay," Messenger said, patting her on the shoulder. "You're Autochthon's kid. You'll improvise."

"We'll be with you," Oz said.

"Straight to the center," Gwen said. "We'll plug you into the Core, you'll become what you were meant to be, and with a little luck Autochthon can start to heal."

"Chance is for the Void," the Messenger said. "You can do this, with our help."

Drusilla touched Buffybot's forehead. "Look into my eyes. Be in me." The robot who was more than a robot stared into infinite green depths. "I have said you are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." The vampire who was no longer a vampire crossed herself. "Blessed art thou among robots, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."

Oz broke the moment with a startled, choking laugh, and Drusilla glared at him. "Prayers have power," she said.

"We don't have to take her robot babies, do we?" Gwen asked.

"Her souls are part of her," Messenger said. "They don't have to be with her in person, and they're too young."

Buffybot made a sad pout as she put the helmet on. "It's too dangerous," she agreed, "but I still wish I could take my babies with me."

"Then let's get it done with," Gwen said, "and get you all back together."

*****

The Tara-minator was only a cloud of golden particles for a second or two. Piper made the throwing motion again, but the other cyborg caught her hands before she could complete it and flipped her over its back.

Paige was waiting. She materialized and flung the athame into the second cyborg's neck, where it stuck fast. "Phoebe, check on Sam and Riley!"

Phoebe was already crouched down with her fingers at Riley's throat. "He's alive! I'm going to try to wake him--" She batted aside a sudden swarm of golden particles. "--up!" Her other hand found a pressure point on his abdomen, and she jabbed hard.

He rolled over and slugged her--or at least, he tried to. Faster than she realized was even possible, she caught his fist. "Whoa there! I'm on your side!"

"Sorry, ma'am," Riley muttered. "Where's Sam?"

"Over here," Sam called, coughing. "She couldn't put me out for long." Sam burst upward on a crackle of flame.

"Two Alchemicals can't--" Piper began. She didn't finish because a burst of golden force slammed her to the floor.

"Not even two Alchemicals loaded for combat?" Calculatrix said, smirking, and leveled the BFG at Phoebe.

The room shook, and she dropped it. The door slammed open again. "Prudence?" Paige said. It definitely looked like their sister, except for the tiny red horns growing out of her temples. But Prudence didn't usually walk on the ceiling.

Calculatrix already had the gun up again. She fired...and the bolt bent around Prudence and slammed into the wall. "Nice try," Prudence said, and flashed forward, crashing into the wall to pin the cyborg there.

"Try not to kill them," Paige warned. "They're more sick than evil."

Sam sighed. "And here I was going to melt this one down for scrap." The Tara-bot punched her in the face, leaving her lip trickling blood. Riley grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and tossed it backwards, though it discorporated again before it could hit the wall. "Damn, she's hard to keep captured."

"The hard we do right away," Phoebe said. "Capturing her, that's _impossible_."

*****

The dragon beat its wings and rolled over to breathe fire on the cybernetic invaders. Tom felt something snap within him. He'd sworn oaths to protect the world, and he'd sworn oaths of secrecy as part of those, but secrecy no longer served the world's needs. His newfound clarity of mind had shown him that. He lifted his hand and flung green lightning at the cyborgs, torrents of it now.

"Tom," young Quentin implored him, "we should retreat. The fae have come to--"

"The fae," Tom said, laughing. "The Fair Folk will protect us? Oh, Quentin, you naive boy!" Travers knew the treacherous nature of the fae; he couldn't have sat on the Council without knowing. Madness had come for Tom on his deathbed; It was time to embrace it.

Quentin tried again to pull Tom away. He was an old man in a battlefield, that was how it looked. He knew it. He knew every creased inch of his leathery face. He knew more certainly, however, that he had transcended age, transcended death.

He threw back his head and laughed. It was all a coincidence. Or it was the inevitable consequence of parallel realities. Or perhaps it was merely the synchronicity of destiny. "Thomas Riddle is dead!" he bellowed. " **I am Lord Voldemort!** "

*****

A crack and a clang shivered the mechanical cocoon down the front, and components clattered to the grating, pieces falling through into the abyss. Harmony Kendall stumbled out, shaking her head vigorously. A mirrored panel caught her eye, showing her that eye half-ringed with metal and a steely framework encapsulating her right hand. Rotating graduated circles zoomed in on imperfections in the floor, in the walls, but none on her.

"Harmony," Daniel Jackson said from off to her left, where he still hung in the black metal cage. "I've been trying to talk the Viator into letting us go, but I don't think I've made much progress. He's very determined."

"Indeed," Executor chimed in.

"Indeed!" the Viator declared, a door irising open for him. "I have the final data! After fruitless millennia I have the secret!" He lifted a device like a tuning fork. "And now, the Exaltations will belong...to me alone."

The device crackled with power. Harmony's gold-and-purple anima flared brilliantly. Then the aura melted away. Fragments of metal fell away from her as she crumpled to the floor. It was okay. It was all going according to....

The plan. She couldn't remember the plan! Harmony fished about in her memory but found only stupid buzzwords about keeping her chin up. The capital of Nicaragua was-- The cosine of...of.... The scientific name of...what even was a scientific name? It was gone. Everything was gone.

The Viator of Nullspace roared in triumph as sparks flew from his eyes and fists. "And now to increase the range. Not one Exaltation shall be mine, but _all_ of them at once! I shall ascend above my maker, above all the Primordials, and the universe shall know, **at last, _a true God!_** "

*****

Shadow wiped her forehead. The procedure seemed to have taken forever, and it was way out of her expertise. Ignis Divine seemed to have chosen her solely out of a sense of appropriateness, not after thinking through her skills. But it was almost over.

She cut the final cord and lifted the pseudo-angelic faux baby--the Ebon Dragon's fetich soul, she had to remind herself again--free. The Maidens wept. The silent figure in black applauded in the corner. The Sun's head lolled over to face her. "I win," he mouthed.

And died.


	17. That Bad Eminence

Sparks flew everywhere. Harmony Kendall remained flat on the ground. She had a vague idea what was coming, a guess, a hunch. The Viator of Nullspace lifted the hand holding the scary tuning fork thing.

A jolt of lightning spasmed that hand open, and the thingamajig fell to the floor. "What?!"

"Good try," Harmony said agreeably. "But it only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades."

The Viator's death-glare snapped over to her. "I understand the Exaltations' natures inside and out. I have recalibrated this one so that a demon or deva can be empowered by it. How have I...I--?" Its legs buckled and threw it to the floor. Fire burst from its knee joints.

"Carrying it nearly killed me, you know," Harmony said casually. "I was burning up from the inside out. Not just because I was a demon--I mean, that didn't help, there wasn't any outlet for the power--because I wasn't worthy. I died commanding part of Buffy's army as a human, fighting an army of vampires and a giant snake-demon. And then as a vampire I faced off with the Slayer more than once. It was stupid of me, but I tried. And the Exaltation still nearly turned me to ashes before I figured out a way to stop an evil genius from getting it. That was just barely enough."

"I am the Minister of Wrath!" the Viator roared, sparking like a live wire. It struggled to rise. "I am the embodiment of the ultimate weapon! Control over the Exaltations is my birthright, my purpose!"

"Except it isn't," Daniel Jackson said, still hanging painfully by his arms inside the Monstrance. He said it as if realizing something obvious that he should have recognized long ago. "The Exaltations can't be controlled by any right but merit. You have to earn it. Even you."

"And have I not?" the Viator snarled. "Have I not spent millennia on this very task? On the most impossible thing?"

"Spent millennia," Harmony sneered. "On the thing you were _created_ for. And you're calling that a victory?"

Flames burst from the Viator's mouth momentarily, but he pushed himself to all fours and crawled painfully toward her. "I will not fail. I will not die. Not so close to success." His hand stretched out to her. "Take back the power. I will be a coadjutor like no other before."

"And one day you'll be free and try again? Nuh-uh. I may be dumb," she said, inching away from him, "but ambition, that I understand." She glanced over at Executor and Doctor Jackson. "Put some flowers on Algernon's grave for me, 'kay?" Executor stared blankly at her, but Jackson nodded solemnly.

"No!" The Viator tottered forward, burning, spraying sparks. "Surely you understand this! Why die? Why, when I offer you--?"

"How many Exalted have you fought?" Harmony interrupted. "Hundreds? Thousands? _I get to be the one who kills you._ "

"You. Shall. Perish." His burning hand clutched at her throat.

She extended her own tiny hand, balled it into a fist...and raised her thumb. "Sorry, Arnold. You're terminated."

With a cry of rage, the Viator exploded.

**Chapter 107--That Bad Eminence**

Beth Maclay sat groggily on the steps of an outbuilding, watching apemen clear more land. Regular humans would have cleared it completely, but the beastmen left tangled patches of trees and vines, only removing what blocked access to buildings or occupied space they wanted to plant. She wanted more sleep, needed more sleep, but going back to bed would mean either lying awake or restless dreams about distant vistas, gourmet food, and, worst of all, sex.

She was a Maclay woman, raised to believe her family would marry her off to someone who could handle the demon in her when she reached an appropriate age. But that destiny was gone now. She was off Earth, her family would follow her wishes if she asked...and God help anyone who thought he could control the demon in her now. If it was a demon in her. If there even was a God.

_**Faithless child. But you can recover from this slump. You need to think positive.** _

Her powers were weakening, too, since Tara had told her about the Yozis. Her strength had mostly left her; her hair hung flat and lifeless; her ready arguments fell apart.

_I can't trust you._

**_You trust demonspawn more than an angel of the Lord? Sad._ **

She ought to be training her powers. She rose and meandered listlessly across the paths. Nothing she ought to be doing appealed. She'd eaten until she was no longer hungry. She'd tired of crafting. Tara had sparred with her a few times but was withdrawn into the library now, learning unclean arts. There was nothing there Beth wanted to read.

She came across a field being weeded. Maybe some of the people here were real human men, not mutant freaks or half-animal, but even those would be disgusting heathens. There was no one here for her. Tara insisted she treat them all like real people, so she tried to avoid them. All the same, Beth found herself stopping to watch them work. Some of them had nice muscles. Strong arms, strong hands...no!

_**Behold, I have given to thee all of these people, as many as you want. Why do you call unclean what God has made holy?** _

Beth groaned. This devil was getting better at quoting Scripture to his purpose. _God wouldn't offer me a bunch of men for fornication. I'm not that stupid...or greedy._

_**Did God not command the prophet Ezekiel to eat unclean bread and go naked for a year? Did David not eat the temple shewbread meant only for the priests? Was Joshua not commanded to slaughter the people of Canaan to the last infant? What God offers to you is clean. Did you balk at murdering witches? But behold--I offer you a special gift.** _

Hoofbeats echoed off the buildings, and the workers scattered. Who would ride a horse through jungle like this? But the creature that appeared was no horse; it had a face and mane like a lion. Some kind of unholy bioengineered thing from this world.

_**Simhata.** _

As the animal galloped up to her, it rippled and transformed, and came to a halt in front of her in the form of a tall young man with bronze skin and silver hair and tattoos. He stared at the fire of her hair for a moment before asking, "Where is Raksi? Are you her servant?"

Beth pulled herself together at the suggestion that she was a servant. "Raksi doesn't live here any more. My cousin overthrew her. I'm Beth Maclay." Was he really staring at her? Not just her hair? She wasn't pretty.

"Overthrew...?" Or maybe he was that shocked that someone could beat a witch. "I...will you take me to your cousin? I am called Dark Eyes. I lead the Ten Tribes. Raksi had not sent me a messenger in weeks, and I grew concerned that she was about to turn on me."

"Come with me," she said. How did other women get men to notice them? She tried to put a little bounce in her step. Let him watch her backside. That was what they liked in a woman, right?

*****

Lilah Morgan, President of the United States of America, was stuck in a tiny office with a computer, borrowed from some law concern from St. Louis.

_**It's not that bad. Put our feet up already.** _

Lilah smirked and put her feet on the desk. "Well, then. How goes the apocalypse?"

Five Days' Darkness spoke first. "The Fair Folk are beating back the Autochthonian forces...for now. And you should worry that they will squirm around their oaths and occupy parts of our world."

"If you had listened to us," D'Hoffryn seethed, "your situation would be far less dire!"

"Twenty-twenty hindsight," Lilah admitted. "I was worried about the Exalted fighting each other and triggering the end themselves."

"A valid concern," D'Hoffryn said, "but don't equivocate. You were worried about losing your position of primacy."

"That's how you made me," Lilah said with a smirk. "Can you blame me for living up to it?"

"Blame?" Mara said. "No. Be disappointed? Certainly. The apocalypses will keep coming, Lilah, and they will get worse. We're still not out of the woods from this one. How many can we survive? You need--"

"To ascend, I know. But you still haven't told me how to do it."

"We can tell you no more because we know no more," Five insisted. "But you should be trying to discover the method."

"I am, as far as I'm able. But I'm Commander-in-Chief and there's a war going on. It won't do the world any good if I become a Primordial just in time to see the Autochthonians destroy all other life."

Mara nodded and sat down beside her. "I suggest refining your control over the physical world. You've focused on dominating society--you've had to--and you have enhanced your personal prowess. But the Primordials were world-makers, not just world-rulers. Your small transmutations are only a beginning."

"You need to cultivate your essence," D'Hoffryn added. "Only the most powerful Infernals were able to make the leap in their evolution to Yozis. I doubt becoming a true Primordial is easier."

"And you should try to develop one of the shintai disciplines," Five said. "They were aspects of the Primordials' own forms. They might help in building your own."

"That's very good advice," Lilah said dryly. "Pity there's nothing more you can tell me."

The three had just enough capacity for shame to look embarrassed. "These are guesses," Mara said. "But they are the guesses of ancient and powerful forces. Now...presuming Drusilla is safely away..."

"Time for a session," Lilah said, smirking. "You two are dismissed."

Mara climbed into her lap as they vanished.

*****

Spike was having the time of his unlife.

Okay, firmin were stupid creatures, hardly worth fighting except in masses. But they attacked in those masses, and their blood was an unexpected delight! It was nothing like human blood. Human blood was steak, Slayer blood chocolate. Firmin blood tasted like apples. Only not really, but the difference was like that. He twisted the head of the next one until it snapped off and drank greedily from the spurting stump.

Without warning the firmin scattered. He'd scared them off? No, he'd been killing them a good fifteen minutes. If they were going to run from him they would've already.

A shadow crept over the green sun, and the sound of a horn winded in his ears, still soft at this distance. "Erembour. Bollocks!" Hold on. Wasn't he supposed to feel compelled to go to her? The horn sounded again, louder, and still he felt nothing. A third time. A firmin straggler and a hidden nest of stomach bottle bugs raced off in the direction of the shadow.

Darkness covered the sun, and at once demons cavorted around him, Erembour's thralls. Spike pushed his way irritably through the crowd. These creatures were things of the night, unlike your average demon. Like him, only stupider, evidently. He shoved a spider out of the way and trod on a ratlike tail as he passed. The owner screeched at him and seized him by the arm.

"You. The Summers' girl's familiar." He was bloody staring into the glowing eyes of Erembour herself.

"Not all that familiar," he choked out.

The eyes narrowed. "You are already mine. And yet not. Some part of you belongs to the Neverborn, like Iminios. No, no, fear me not, but fear others who might perceive this in you here. Those whom the Yozis mourn, they also fear. As I was saying: Buffy Summers. The eleventh Slayer. You know her. Warn her not to interfere at the center. The Ebon Dragon, my master, will not be pleased if she does."

Spike studied the cloaked figure. She was a shapely thing, that was certain. Daft, if she thought he could restrain Buffy. "How 'bout if I tell her you approve an' stop her that way?"

Erembour's head tilted. "Stop her any way you like, little beast of shadow, spawn of my Warden Soul Maloker. Carry my blessing with you. I find you...intriguing. Perhaps I shall make more like you." He couldn't see her lips, but they found his anyway. She filled him till he felt as if he were drowning and....

He looked around. The street was empty. The green sun shone down on him; it stung a little but did him no harm. Buffy. He needed to find Buffy and make sure she didn't invade the Blessed Isle. Funny, he couldn't remember why exactly, but it'd be a daft thing to do, storming that place. Even Buffy couldn't handle it.

"A vamp's gotta do what a vamp's gotta do," he told himself. First, of course, he had to escape from hell. That step was a doozy, but he'd make it. He had to.

*****

"Luna," Shadow said to the figure cloaked in black. "Why hide?"

The hood fell back. If it was Luna, she was in disguise as someone who had no business aboard the Daystar. She regarded Shadow coolly. "And so you fulfill the purpose for which I Exalted you: the death of the Unconquered Sun."

"I figured as much when you called me this," said the Unconquerable Shadow, "but I didn't think you were working together."

"For a few years," the Black Heron admitted. "He approached me, during a brief show of interest in the world after the Solars returned. But then he fell back into the Games without selecting an agent, so I chose you for him. He did approve you, just lately."

"Did you know why?" Shadow asked her.

"He told me then. Kill that thing--" the Deathlord pointed a slim finger at the ersatz child, "--and the Ebon Dragon as we know him ceases to exist. He'll return in some form soon, but who knows what he might become? It would be hard for him to grow worse."

Shadow lifted a surgical knife to plunge into the demon baby's heart. It grinned up at her and gurgled. She hardened her heart and stabbed the thing repeatedly. Hot red blood sprayed her face as the baby screamed, screamed, and then fell silent and limp in her hands, dead eyes gazing up at her reproachfully...

She hadn't done it. She _couldn't_ do it. The baby...the demon...cooed happily at her. "You're a Deathlord," she said, thrusting the damned thing at the Princess Magnificent. "You kill it."

The Deathlord took the baby and made as if to snap its neck, but it began to whimper. Her fingers trembled on the brink. "It's not a child," she reminded herself. "It is a soul of the hateful Yozi. It lived on while the Neverborn died. I...I have a duty...a right...I...must care for it. Raise it to be a good person." The horror was draining from her voice. "It can change. The Ebon Dragon can change. We should protect it."

"But it can't..." Shadow protested. "It can't...protect itself. So we have to." Her voice firmed. "We have to take care of it...to...." She seized the baby and thrust it at Saturn. "Take care of it...I mean, of destroying it."

Saturn blinked. "It's outside of Fate, Buffy. The creature is your responsibility, not ours. Besides, isn't it precious?" Venus cooed over it, and the baby cooed back.

"It is. It's precious." _Like the One Ring._ But before she could say anything more, the Daystar began to quake.

*****

Tepet Fokof touched the crystal screen and watched the image of Weeping Raiton Cast Aside shimmer into focus. The woman unnerved him, but the process was amazing. And anyway, she was far, far away from him. "How goes the invasion?" he asked.

She should have jumped, but Raiton seemed beyond all human reaction. "The fools have made an alliance with the Fair Folk to beat back the immediate threat. They don't seem to recognize that Autochthon's death is imminent, or perhaps what will happen at his passing."

"You end that world," Fokof said, "and let me rule mine, and it all works out. Everyone gets what they want, even some version of the Neverborn." As he saw it, the mere existence of multiple worlds meant that everyone got to indulge their desires somewhere, and this was the world where Fokof got his.

Raiton didn't think so, which he could hear in her soft "As you say." No doubt she thought all versions of every world should end. But of course every turn of events had to be represented, including the world ending and the world not ending. So nothing was any big deal. There was a world somewhere where he really was a pitiful functionary, and another where he was a "good" man. Neither was this one.

Fokof reached for the popped corn and touched a different contact. Buffy Summers appeared on the screen. She stared stupidly at the stone his messenger had delivered, ss if she thought she needed to for him to see her face. Pretty, but such a fool. "Hello there, Buffy. Are we about to make harbor yet? Mnemon still unsuspecting?"

"If she were any dumber I'd think she really was a marble statue. Got her fooled six ways from Sunday. She thinks we have a plot to infiltrate the Imperial Manse and take it from you."

Anyone who described Mnemon as stupid either had no idea what they were talking about...or was lying. Fokof knew where to place his money. Summers had proven competent in her diversionary role, so she had to have a little cleverness in her. "Keep her distracted until she's in the snare, and no doubt the Yozis will reward you well. I have business to be about." He closed that connection too.

"Ejava?"

The Roseblack appeared on the screen, amusingly frustrated and appalled. "How dare you--?"

"I dare because I know what's in your heart, my lady. You wouldn't want the poor Dragon to suffer for all eternity, now would you?" He grinned broadly at her. The ring had left its mark, of course.

"As far as I'm concerned, nothing could be agony enough!" She hesitated. "Are you concerned you might fail?"

"Not at all, so long as you act at the crucial moment. Buffy Summers will go down in infamy as the betrayer of the Reclamation, and the Ebon Dragon will reign supreme for eternity. How does that please you?"

He munched the popped kernels and awaited her response. "I...I want to see him free, as he deserves. But he's horrible, Fokof. How can I feel so much pity for him?"

Fokof beamed mockingly at her. "Clearly, you are so deeply in love."

*****

The Maiden of the Mirthless Smile wasn't even sure who she was any more. The chill in this place _should_ have been echoed by that in her heart. Charles Gunn smiled back at her, and she felt herself thaw a little further. "All your life?" she asked.

"Not when I was little. I was lucky they didn't just kill me, though. My world ain't a pretty place for the black man, or the poor man neither." He bit off a piece of jerky.

"Contempt for the poor is universal," Kenda agreed. "But they care about your skin color?" He wasn't mutated by the Wyld, so far as she could see.

"Long story," he said, as if they didn't have time for it. "They care about all kinds of things." Willow nodded from further down the table. "Course, at least they did _try_ to get rid of slavery there. Pretty good plan, faulty execution."

"And so you became a warrior." The Maiden considered him. In his world, her history would be unknown. It could perhaps be forgotten. "When you return, what will you do about it?"

"Hadn't got it all planned out yet," he admitted, "but I won't let it go, I can tell you that."

He might have said more, but as he spoke, Fred leapt to her feet, shaking the camp table. She pointed skyward. "That, that can't be good at all!"

The Maiden thought about what she saw. "That's open to question," she said. "But it certainly is unusual."

High overhead, the sun had gone red as blood.


	18. Daughter of D'Hoffryn

Fred stood in Willow's cabin aboard the icerunner Slate-Grey Sky and trembled. It shouldn't be like this. She was Exalted, too. But the cabin was covered in entrails, human entrails, and Willow had put them there.

"He was an akuma spy," Willow said. "He didn't even have free will any more. The Yozis can reach right into their heads and change their thoughts however they like. Tara gave me permission," she added. "She knew I'd need this power to help people, to save the world."

"Tara may have given you permission," Fred agreed. "I didn't. And it's going to take more than 'I did what I had to do' to earn my forgiveness."

Willow rose to her feet, unnaturally shifting, bones popping and limbs contorting. Fred loved her in spite of her now-usual appearance, but the mummification had left her a grotesque, horrifying monster nonetheless. "Gethamane is getting nearer. If we lose the fight there, the world could die. Or worse. Would you believe there are things worse than living death, Fred?" Her bony digits curled around her lover's throat. "Do you want to learn about them firsthand?"

Fred could stop her easily. Shift form, slip away, stab Willow through the heart if need be. In theory. So why wasn't it working? Nothing in the world should be able to stop her from shapeshifting. "Dunno," she said flippantly, "you seem to want to learn everything, no matter how horrible."

"Then I'll help by binding your ghost to me forever," Willow said, baring fangs. "All I have to do is _eat you alive_."

Willow wouldn't--but she knew how to--Willow sank her teeth into Fred's neck and began, not just to drink, but to _chew_. Fred thrashed and screamed, and Willow let go for a moment. "You're my mate," she said. "You should want what I want. Be happy."

The terror didn't vanish. Inside a cage of imposed love and joy, Fred beat against the bars of her own mind as Willow devoured her piece by piece--

Fred awoke screaming, balled up in sheets that weren't quite enough to keep out the cold. It was only a dream. Just a nightmare. Willow did terrifying things sometimes, but not--

Willow sat beside her in bed, symbols swirling through a nimbus of black light. "I'm sorry," she said. "It was the only safe way." The letters and numbers of occult formulae sank into her withered skin till only black light remained, burning from her bloody caste mark. "I had to put someone through awful pants-wetting mortal terror," she finished.

"So you picked me?" Fred fought down the urge to beat Willow into a pile of quivering bones on the floor.

"Over someone who'd fear and hate me forever without understanding why?" Willow asked. At least she sounded sincere. "If I have to ruin our relationship to save the world, Fred, I will. I'd do the same with Tara, but she's not here."

"You haven't yet," Fred said uneasily. How much did the bond hold her? What might flip it from undying love to undying hate, if this hadn't?

"Good," said Willow, glumly, "because necromancy and sorcery are alike in a lot of ways, and now...now I need a sacrifice."

She strode over to the window and pulled back the curtain. The mountains in the distance grew nearer every day. "What's it going to be?" Fred asked.

"Dunno," Willow said, as casually as Fred had in the dream, sending ice into her marrow. Willow knew very well what she was sacrificing.

She just wouldn't say.

**Chapter 108--Daughter of D'Hoffryn**

Beth Maclay sat across from Dark Eyes, eating strange jungle citrus fruit and meeting his gaze. That was a strange feeling, looking into a man's eyes as an equal, but good. If anything, he was the one disturbed. "I owe you a debt of gratitude," Dark Eyes said. "My people can be free of her, and I can return to my wife. Iris will be overjoyed to see the war end." His gaze flickered nervously toward Beth when he mentioned his wife. Beth didn't react. God had given him to _her_ , not to First Iris of Spring.

The robot calling itself Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo ignored the byplay between them. "May your peace be lasting," it said pleasantly. "Tara, I apologize for dropping in unannounced, but I needed to inform you that Raksi has given birth. There is little question that the boy is yours. If we bring him to you, can you care for him? Raksi _may_ be responding to Om's therapy, but she's still far from a suitable parent." The robot took a sip of juice. Why didn't it get its parts all gummed up?

Tara made a little sad pout and lowered her head for a second. "I think I can. I've taken care of babies before." Beth tried not only scoff. Tara had to know you couldn't just breast-feed on command. And how could she possibly have a child by another woman?

Tara looked down for a moment, her flesh rippled, and for a brief instant an anaconda coiled in her chair. Then Tara was herself again, but bare from the waist up, a droplet of milk beaded on her nipple. Beth made a disgusted face. Tara had fallen so far, and yet Beth had almost believed in her. "Did you bring the baby?" Tara asked.

In response, the robot gestured, and two attendants wearing decent jumpsuits--hard to come by around here, definitely, stepped forward carrying a large case of some sort. The one on the right pushed a button and case folded open to reveal a sleeping infant. "Do you have a name for him?" Nelumbo asked.

Tara thought about that a moment. "Isaac," she said. Beth frowned but said nothing; Tara had gone over the load of nonsense about their ancestor and was probably thinking in terms of trying to redeem the name, as if it needed redeeming. Beth thought "Donald" would have been better, but it wasn't her call.

Tara took the infant and put it to her breast, where it struggled for a couple of long minutes, but, sure enough, was able to nurse. Beth tried not to feel humiliated. Tara could turn into an animal and transform her clothes; lactating basically at will was hardly a stretch. Still..."Raksi carried the baby?" Beth asked. "How did you...?"

"Do you really want to know that?" Tara asked. "It's maybe not a good time to show you, but I can later." Of course. The idea was extremely lewd, but plausible from what Beth had seen. For all she knew....

_**More easily than you would guess, Beth. Want to try it out?** _

_No!_

The inner voice fell silent. Beth turned away from her sister to watch Dark Eyes instead. Dark Eyes still couldn't quite meet her gaze. "I hope the end of the war comes soon," she said sincerely. "I'll help you get ready to go, if you like."

Tara was too busy with the baby to see him flinch. Nelumbo wasn't, but what did a robot's opinion matter? Dark Eyes was hers, her mate given by God, and Iris was just another heathen in the way.

Something might have to be done about her.

*****

"You got that, Fred?"

Fred gave Gunn a level look and stretched her arms out until she could reach the box above her head. "Thanks for asking, but yeah, I do."

In fairness, she was beginning to show. And by "beginning to show", she really meant, "in the last few days I have swallowed a small watermelon". If she were a mere mortal, she really would be a bit impaired. Even Exalted mommies didn't get out of the inconvenience entirely. Leviathan's kid punched her in the kidney to remind her of that. He was going to be a big boy.

"Sorry," Gunn said, "Mama raised me to be polite, and I'm not used to pregnant women needing this little help."

"No offense taken," Fred told him. "Hey, has Willow said anything about a sacrifice to you?"

Gunn stared. "Not a thing. She did pick my brain, though. Something about stasis in space as well as time, whatever she meant by that."

"She's trying to learn necromancy, and there are trials," Fred said, "like the ones I had to go through to learn sorcery. I don't know where she heard about them, but she's met some other Abyssals, even that awful Weeping Raiton. They might've told her."

"She could be very powerful," the Maiden said, rising from a hatch. "Abyssals can learn the deepest Circle, and the Scholar has far more brains in her head than that fool Lady of Darkness."

"Say what ya like," Gunn said, "I ain't gonna underestimate her. I'm not even convinced she's dead."

"She took a direct strike from the Sword of Creation," the Maiden objected.

"So did Willow," Fred argued, "and it took her all of a few seconds to reintegrate."

"True," the Maiden said. "Perhaps she escaped. I have learned a spell or two myself, but I am nothing to speak of in that area. There are simpler ways to kill both the living and the dead."

"Don't think I'll ever be interested in spells myself," Gunn said agreeably. "Right now, I just wish I could catch up to you guys in terms of raw power before this final battle thing starts."

A flash of light seared the cabin, followed by a choking burst of sand and smoke. A demonic voice boomed out, "Do I hear an Exalt wish for power unearned? I am D'Hoffryn, lord of wishes, here to offer you what you seek!"

*****

Willow groaned and climbed hastily through the hatch. "Acknowledging that you haven't actually met us yet," she grumbled, "please allow me to ask, 'You again?'"

Leaving a Third-Circle demon nonplussed wasn't something that happened every day. D'Hoffryn proved to be no exception. "So you've encountered me. Were you in disguise or in hiding?"

"The easy answer," Fred said, "is time travel."

The Lord of Wishes scoffed. "The Five-Score Fellowship has ensured that time travel is impossible."

Willow nodded. "Yeah, but there are ways to approximate it by using alternate timelines." She had a vague notion Anya had said something about changing the past to dodge attacks, so it couldn't be all that impossible.

To his credit, D'Hoffryn merely looked thoughtful. "Far be it from me to argue with the Exalted." He bowed his head slightly in a manner that had to be subtle mockery. "I will take your 'easy answer' as an approximation, then. I have not met you in this timeline. Can you then tell me when I sired you?"

Abyssal Exalted, on the other hand, could definitely be taken aback. Willow had to close her mouth for a few moments before saying, "My dad is Ira Rosenberg and my mom is Sheila Rosenberg."

"So they must have taught you," D'Hoffryn said, "and yet I know my own. Yet I sire offspring only for my own ends, and I know nothing of you." He put a pair of fingers to his cheekbone. "Rather than multiply unnecessary entities, I must presume our memories have been altered by the time shift you describe."

Willow stared at Fred, and Fred stared back. Dealing with the Judge must have spoiled them; she'd forgotten that D'Hoffryn was scary smart. And patient. "Maybe," she said. "I remember you wanted to make me one of your vengeance demons." Unexpectedly, he gave her a puzzled stare. "You know, to grant vengeance wishes for you."

"I shall have to keep that in mind," the demon said thoughtfully. "A race of serfs who can grant wishes on my behalf, and move easily between worlds? That _would_ be handy. A waste of your potential, however. Hmm."

Fred was sketching some kind of diagram on the table with her fingernails. Two spacetime frameworks...discontinuous motion from one to the other...mimicking time travel without any actual risk--or opportunity--of altering the past. But then she made a slicing motion and redrew one of the frames. The present could be altered to _look_ as if the past had changed. "Shaping," she wrote.

D'Hoffryn either didn't notice or pretended not to. He began to say something about "This alternative world," only to be cut short as Kenda put a black sword to his chest.

"Are you going to take him up on his offer, Charles?" the Maiden asked.

"Not planning on it," Gunn said.

"Then you should probably return to Malfeas where you belong," she hissed into D'Hoffryn's ear.

"I will bother you no further," D'Hoffryn said agreeably, "but why waste a good jailbreak in that way?" There was a burst of smoke and lightning, and he was gone.

"He went Darth Vader on you," Fred said, rubbing sandy grit from her eyes.

"Think he was telling the truth?" Gunn asked. "That's gotta be weird."

"Nah," Willow said. "It's mom's line that counts, so...still Jewish."

*****

"Buffy?" Dawn peeked around the corner. "Are you okay?"

"I've," Buffy grunted, "been...better. You did this...before." Cyan had been baffled, even appalled, at the notion of Buffy giving birth in a bed, but her villa held all manner of couches and stools and squatting frameworks. Right now Buffy was stalking around and around the room.

"That was a seriously magical pregnancy, Buffy. It lasted maybe fifteen minutes and then I gave birth to Faith as an adult centaur."

Buffy ran her hands over her belly. "Yeah, well, I was just starting to show last week when we got off the boat. I know, I know, I sped it up, but I thought it'd be more...even. Like a nice constant steep slope. Instead I started waking up bigger every morning."

"It is, in a sense, a demonic pregnancy," Mnemon warned. "For mortals, such births are frequently lethal. Even an unlucky Exalt might run afoul of some complication."

"I just wish I had an ultrasound," Buffy grumbled.

"It's a clone of you, Buffy," Dawn reminded her. "It's gonna be a girl. It's going to look like you."

Cyan slouched on the most comfortable-looking of the birthing couches, preventing Buffy from using it. Buffy wanted to kick her ass. "We're in nearly uncharted territory," Cyan warned. "I expect Buffy's child to resemble her closely, but it _has_ been a vessel for the power of an Exaltation and the Yozis for its entire existence. It might display mutations, and it will certainly be half-caste. No Infernal half-caste is more than a year old, to my knowledge."

"She'll have some Slayer powers?" Dawn wondered.

"Almost certainly," Cyan said. "The ancient Exalts' children did. It took them some time to grow into them, at least. I've heard rumors of Abyssal half-castes too. You wouldn't think the Neverborn would approve, but maybe if they have a plan...."

"They're willing to make the Abyssals themselves immortal," Mnemon pointed out. "Though they plan for them to die at the end of all things."

"Anyway," Cyan finished, "your child might be changed by your powers, or by your coadjutor. Akuma have done what you've done before, but not commonly, and even fewer Green Sun Princes."

Buffy started to answer, but a powerful contraction caught her by surprise and she almost bit her tongue. "I...kinda would've...liked to have...someone to blame...besides myself." Mnemon stared blankly at her as the contraction eased. "It's a tradition. You scream at the daddy and tell him this is all his fault."

"I see." Mnemon did her best to conceal the amusement she felt--a mortal would have missed it--but Buffy felt the urge to wring her neck. "I could stand in, I suppose, but you are correct that you have only yourself to blame."

"You'll do," Buffy growled, "for a stand-in." The contractions were coming fast now. She squatted down, trying to relieve some of the pressure.

"Buffy," Mnemon said, " _push_."

Buffy seized hold of Mnemon's and Cyan's arms and bore down hard. She felt something give way, maybe tear, and then Dawn reached underneath. "Her head's out," Dawn said. "One more. Something's freaky weird here."

"It's just a caul," Cyan said, "though some do say that's an omen of supernatural births."

"No," Dawn said. "There's something else. Buffy, _push_. Hard."

Buffy felt the baby slip free of her, and Dawn held it up, pulling the torn bit of membrane free. It didn't look right. Two legs with adorable feet and toes, two chubby arms with stubby fingers, a bald head with a mouth that opened to squall as Cyan cut the cord....

Buffy's baby spread stubby, black-downed wings, and Buffy's mouth fell open. "Oh my god," she breathed. "Oh my god. She's _perfect_."

*****

"It's not natural," Iron Siaka said. "It's not right." The sky of Yu-Shan had been starless night for days now, and now a red sun had bloomed amidst the clouds. The throngs of deities that should have filled the streets had mostly retreated into their homes.

"The Yozis?" Anya asked.

"Alarm bells would be going off all over the Bureau if the Yozis broke free," Siaka said, shaking her head vehemently. "With the state Heaven's in, I'm not sure there'd be an army of gods marching into Creation, but we'd sure as hell be demanding one."

"They say if the Sun died," Black Ice Shadow began, but Siaka rejected that idea too.

"How can the Sun die when he can't lose?"

"Death wasn't meant to be disaster and defeat," Black Ice reminded her. "Sometimes, even now, death is a welcome friend, or a necessary sacrifice. Maybe after millennia of frustration, Ignis Divine is drinking deep of Lethe."

"Do the gods do that?" Anya asked. "I thought they just snuffed out."

"No Celestine has ever died," Iron Siaka explained, "not since the Primordial War, at least. So who really knows? But what frustration? He. Can't. Lose."

"With the Solar Exalted," Black Ice insisted. "Isn't that obvious?"

"Hmm," Siaka said. "Okay, you have a point there."

Anya contemplated the red sun. "I just hope the Solar Exalted aren't like Superman. Because that would be bad."

*****

D'Hoffryn sat and watched the Loom of Fate. Willow, and later Drusilla, had been meant to be his access to ultimate cosmic power. But as always, the free will of the Exalted thwarted his dreams. Even Drusilla, even that mad, broken girl, was out to pursue her own--

"Lord of Arashmaharr." D'Hoffryn spun around and was immediately face to face with...himself?

"We have a great deal to talk about," the second D'Hoffryn said. "Beginning with our plans for Willow Rosenberg. Do you know what we intended for her?"

"Sadly, it's too late for that," D'Hoffryn said to his double. "She's an Abyssal. We can't make an Infernal of her now."

"I see," the intruder--the impostor?--said. "What shall we do with her, then?"

D'Hoffryn stroked his cheek. "Well...we can always finish the death she began. But it lacks poetry, wouldn't you agree?"

"I would," said his double. "Therefore...what now?"

"Infinite worlds," D'Hoffryn admitted. "Infinite Willows?"

"What can it hurt to search? Sounds like a plan."


	19. Karma Chameleon

Alexander thought he really should be getting tired by now. They'd made landfall days ago and been marching ever since, barring short breaks for food and sleep. The Vermillion Legion scouts didn't even seem to need those. "I wish I could do the group enhancement thing."

"It is a gift of the Dragons," the Roseblack said coolly.

Anja leaned in close to him. "There are things Solars can do for other people, even things that Lunars can do, but neither of us were made for the kind of group enhancement the Dragon-Blooded were. They were made as soldiers, not warriors, but this is nothing to them."

The land was covered in crops again, mostly rice by this point, though as they rose above sea level drier crops were beginning to appear. "This is where we all started getting separated," Alexander noted, and pointed at the immense statue of the Penitent. It had been visible in the distance even before they made landfall, though from there it had just seemed to be a far-off mountain. "Fred...got her big chance here, and then all hell broke loose and a Sidereal took us away pretending to help us but stranded us out in the Western ocean."

"Never trust a Sidereal," Anja grunted, "but I'm surprised they told you what they were. Sidereals don't do that."

Alexander shrugged. "I just figured afterwards that it was like a villain monologuing. They didn't expect me to get off the island or Fred to escape from Luthe."

***

Tepet Fokof scowled. "Don't we have an agent masquerading as Gracious Shaia?"

"We do," the Orchid-Consuming Guardian confirmed. "He hasn't left the Cult's training camp in some time. Shaia herself is supposedly locked up in his basement in Malfeas, but I've heard no news of her in weeks or months."

"Dead?" Fokof smirked. Any dead Sidereal was a gap in Destiny's defenses for at least a decade and a half, likely more.

The Guardian shrugged, though. "Would it kill us? Even if we were truly forgotten by our captor, we could survive and likely escape. I'm more surprised she's still captive."

Fokof nodded irritably. "He's no doubt got all the resources of hell bent on keeping her there."

**Chapter 109--Karma Chameleon**

The barbarian nudged Anja, so she nudged back. Idiot, thinking all his muscles made him tougher than her. "What d'ya want, Cearr?"

"I'm just tryin ta figure out what use I'm gonna be in the Lap. Sure, I'm too conspicuous for the Blessed Isle, but I'm somehow supposed ta schmooze around looking for this gate into the Penitent?"

"I'm sure there'll be ancient Deliberative guardians to fight," Anja suggested. "Just stay busy and out of sight till we find our way in, then be the muscle. That's what you're good for, right?"

Cearr scowled, then tossed his head like a fly-pestered horse and walked away. "Not sure how he's any different from Buffy," Xander said. "If he needs to schmooze, what's to stop him from, y'know, schmoozing Malfeas-style?"

"Malfeas gives orders and expects obedience," Anja told her outlander. "He doesn't exactly socialize, even among his fellow Yozis."

Xander raised his head and lowered it again in the slowest possible nod. "Bavarian Fire Drill," he said opaquely. Seeing her lack of comprehension, he added, "You go in and pretend you have the authority to do whatever you want. Most people won't question you."

"Some people will," Anja said slowly. "No...that's mortal thinking. I might as well say, 'Some weights are too heavy to lift.' There might be a few strong-willed people who could still resist the authority of the King of Hell, but certainly far fewer of them."

"Or 'Some problems are too complicated to solve,'" Xander finished. "The thing is...shouldn't he know that? Are we sure he's on our side?"

"Cearr is on Cearr's side," said a chill voice from behind them. Sulumor. "As I am on my side, and that of the Dune Folk. So long as he sees benefit in working with you, he will continue to. He's still a lout. He simply doesn't often think of using his powers to such an end, as Buffy does not. As most of us don't, in truth. I know that I could pulverize that stone wall with my fists," she said, pointing to a low barrier between fields, "but in a pinch I would likely forget to try. I tend to rely on my words instead. And Essence cannons aren't likely to listen to those."

***

"Are there any Infernals actually still working for the Yozis?" Fokof seethed. His relationship with the Ebon Dragon was mutually beneficial, sure, but the key word there was "mutually".

The Guardian raised his hand. "And if all the others were against me, I would know. I can assure you, the Reclamation is largely still on track."

"And if you, too, were a traitor?" Fokof waggled his eyebrows, then shrugged. "At this point, the Realm is behind me, I have Sulumor's demonic creations, and Project Clay Man is well under way."

"Clay Man?" The Orchid-Eater turned sharply. "I don't think you've run that one past me."

"Consider it an inspiration from Buffy," Fokof said with an old man's faux-senile grin. "Come on, you're going to love this." Shadow flickered over him, and once again he was the spitting image of the Scarlet Empress. He beckoned excitedly. "C'mon!"

*****

Dawn snuggled the baby into the crook of her arm. "Buffy, are you sure you want to call her that?"

"'California' is a perfectly good name!" Buffy insisted, upside down atop Mnemon's exercise bars. "If she's going to be my successor, I want her to remember where I came from. If not, it's still pretty."

"It's no stranger than my family's proclivity for shades of green," Cyan argued. "Personally I was rather hoping you'd give her a Threshold-style name, like Threefold Blossom of Fire."

"Given that we _are_ married, and that I am heir apparent to the Realm, I would have favored 'Mnemon California'," Mnemon said, making her way up the climbing bars. "She would still carry the memories you wish for her."

"Could go with 'Mnemon California Summers'," Dawn said, only half-joking. "That way she gets to have two family names without the hyphen!"

Buffy flipped over and somersaulted down the bars. "Actually that's pretty close to Sunnydale naming conventions! Mnemon, your name's a root from an Earth language that means 'memory'. I don't know if that's of the coincidental or what."

"Mnemon California Summers, and she goes by California?" Cyan grinned. "In all honesty, I think that's clever and beautiful."

"Let's face it," Dawn said, "She'll probably end up going by 'Callie'."

"Is that the goddess of destruction you mentioned?" Mnemon asked.

"Different culture," Dawn said. "Sounds the same." She handed Buffy a towel. "So am I really the first raksha on the Blessed Isle?"

"No," Cyan said, mounting the bars, "but perhaps in this Age. And raksha who came this far in the Deliberative Era came as captives, usually experimental subjects. No one saw them as people--more as predators mimicking human form and behavior. Not entirely false, you understand."

"Maybe I can change some minds," Dawn said. "I promise I'm a good sister." After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Buffy nodded. "I know that wasn't your fault, Buffy. I'm glad we've patched things up." She touched Buffy on the forehead as Cyan dismounted.

***

They were home!

Buffy nearly jumped out of her skin. "Dawn, are we--?"

"It's a dream," Dawn said regretfully. "It's all happening inside your head. For what it's worth, it's real to me. I miss home too."

"What are we doing here?" Buffy flopped down on the couch and tried the tv, which flicked on just fine but showed only images of herself in a threesome with Spike and Mnemon, which was absurd. She cut it off.

"Partly I just wanted to see it again," Dawn said, "but partly...my body comes from my powers. I'm adding a link to you so that even if something were to damage my usual body I can keep existing inside your head. Kind of. And it'll let you share some of my powers. I did that with Xander for a while. It was fun."

"At this point I'm not going to argue with more power," Buffy said. "I don't guess it works the other way?"

Dawn sat down beside her. "In the Wyld...or here...I'm the next thing to all-powerful. In the real world, what I can do is pretty limited." She gestured, and Buffy shrank to the size of a Barbie doll. "All this is basically just a dream."

Buffy struggled to focus, to grow herself back to normal size, but nothing happened! "Dawn, stop! I don't like this."

Dawn flicked her fingers again, and Buffy returned to normal, though Dawn sprouted another pair of arms. "Sorry. It's a dream, but it's my dream, basically."

"Grump grump," said Buffy. "I could go all wicker-me, but I can't just make my medusa hair thing. At least not without spending a bunch of energy, and I shouldn't do that here anyway."

"There's one more thing you should know," Dawn said, "something I remembered. There are some raksha who are...more than nobles. They're called ishvara. Balor was one. They're really rare, and they have powers that...nobody else has them. They are to raksha what the Incarnae are to gods. I don't want to scare you, and I really don't want to alarm Mnemon or anybody like that, but...Buffy, there's never been anything like the Key. In principle, sure, chancels and breakthroughs and all that...but we still don't know why I'm still a chancel now that I'm a person again."

"You're saying you're an...." Buffy searched for a pun, something she might have misheard, but nothing came to her. "One of these...ishvara?"

"Maybe," Dawn said. "But if you say that to anyone who knows what I mean, they _will_ try to kill me. I'd be the next Balor, the next Fomorian Dream...and you brought me to the heart of Creation."

"Our secret, then," Buffy said without hesitation. She kissed Dawn on the forehead, and the dream crumbled.

*****

Fokof led the Orchid-Eater deep into the palace before unexpectedly cutting through a kitchen. "Got the munchies," he said, almost apologetically. He did pick up some rock candy sweets, but then he diverted into the storeroom and shoved aside some barrels to reveal a trap door. "Several connections to this area," he said. "Old. Big."

"It certainly is," the Guardian breathed. The room stretched out as large as some villages and was filled with all manner of glassware and ancient machinery. And...squat brass towers lit by green flame? Neomah. All the lab workers here were neomah. "A genesis manufactory?"

"Yes!" Fokof cried delightedly. "The absolutely most attractive genesis laboratory ever to exist in Creation! Don't you love it?"

"It's...astonishing," the Guardian said carefully. Fokof had murdered his daughter, likely to somehow staff this place. Chained her in a locust pit, perhaps. Other demons milled about in spots, but most were confined to translucent cages. Every so often a neomah would slice a piece from their flesh, then drop it onto a conveyor. "How are you getting so many demons here?"

Fokof shrugged. "The Blessed Isle is full of displaced peasants these days. I round them up and transform them. Easy matter."

"And are those waiting to be transformed?" Off to the left stood a group of humans in collars. But they looked....

"Hardly. I can't transform Exalts. Those are washouts and rebellious Outcastes. Why should they clutter the Isle?" At the far end of the room, Fokof paused. "And here is the true inspiration and masterwork. Mechanoprosthetic limbs imbued with demon essence by way of chalcanth. Alveua! How goes the work?"

The demon--seemingly-forever a teenage girl in black metal clothing--scowled at him. "Ligier is delaying my shipment. He has questions about your factory operation. But my parts are finished, at least."

"What are we producing here, exactly?" the Guardian asked, certain of the answer yet afraid to hear it.

"Kinematically-redundant biomechanical demonoids," said the image of the Empress as Fokof changed form. "An army of them."

*****

"Here it is," Alexander said. "The entry to the Earth chakra is...buried about ten feet under this spot."

"Wonderful," the Roseblack grumbled.

"Hey, come on now," he reminded her, "I'm sure the guy or gal you need to get inside there is perfectly capable of digging through that in five minutes flat."

"How do you know this?" Anja wondered. "Are you a geomancer?"

Alexander shrugged. "I work in construction, and I grew up on a Hellmouth. I'm not saying I could build you a manse, but I see patterns here that I'm familiar with." He stuck his finger into his mouth, then traced a line up into the air and sighted along it. A faint trail of essence light followed, so Anja dope-slapped him. She did mark where it pointed, though. "Ow! And I was just going to say, there we have the Wood chakra, behind that palace up there. Ejava?"

The Roseblack shrugged. "The palace of the Golden Triumvirate, where the three satraps live. Unless someone's warned them against me, I should be able to just walk in."

"Is there an actual entrance," Sulumor asked, "or will you have to rip a hole through the back wall?"

"Good question," Alexander answered. "Um...I can draw a line to the other chakra points but I can't really see what's up there. We'll have to do some mountain climbing."

The Roseblack shrugged. "We came prepared for it. Let's get someone in here and then we can get started."

The ground began to shudder.

***

"He thinks he can parry the Sword of Creation with the Penitent," the Orchid-Eater concluded. "Likely he can."

Fokof snickered. "He thinks he's a geomancer. At best, he's a talented amateur. He'll never get past the essence blocks. The Penitent was safety locked a long, long time ago."

"He has a force of Terrestrials with him," the Guardian argued, "and a No Moon. What if they work it out?"

Fokof shrugged. "I could go ahead and smash the Penitent now, but the Ebon Dragon says it risks destabilizing the dragon lines. For the moment, I've got to keep the bread part of bread and circuses open for business."

***

Cearr gritted his teeth and drove in another piton. "You sure we're not wasting our time, boy?"

"That's Admiral Harris to you, pal!" Alexander hung onto the rope and scurried up onto the next fold of the great stone robes. "We've got to reach the brow as soon as possible. See the caste-mark-thingy there?" He pointed; the black slag had flowed over the sun-symbol but somehow failed to blot it out. "What do you think will happen if Fokof realizes we could use this thing to block him?" Cearr made a slit-throat gesture.

"You two have got to get a better handle on climbing!" Anja laughed as she scuttled past them, clinging with her hands and feet alone.

Alexander looked at Cearr; Cearr looked back. "C'mon, kid!" Cearr said with a chuckle. "We can't let a Lunar beat us!"

"Air chakra," Xander called out, "here we come!"

*****

"Tunnels, tunnels everywhere," Fred mused. "It's almost like being back in Luthe."

"I hope you left the city in good hands," Kenda said awkwardly. "One would not want the people to be slaughtered."

"Tomazri has a handle on it," Fred told her. "The only thing I'm worried about is uprisings by the Scionborn."

"I still want to try and fix things in Varajtul," Willow said quietly, "but I'm really not sure how to go about it."

"Kill the troublemakers," Kenda suggested.

"They're all troublemakers," Willow said exasperatedly. "Their entire culture is based around cannibalism and ghost slavery."

"Maybe they're just too far gone," Gunn argued. "I know you guys think you've turned Sulumor, and maybe you have, but the Dune People, they don't do the slavery thing, right?"

"Not as far as I know," Willow agreed. "Green Aurora at least tried to listen to me, though."

"One person," Gunn said. "Maybe you can save a few without being able to fix their society, y'know?"

"Maybe," Willow said unhappily. "Let's get moving." They entered the outermost ring of tunnels, marked by the huge metal gates that barred them off from the Underways proper. "We've paid the fee," she told the guards. "We know the rules." The fee was no more than a token, but whatever they brought back they'd have to hand over half of. The pale guard shrugged, nodded, and unlocked the door.

"There's supposed to be all kinds of nasty stuff down here," Gunn warned. "Keep your eyes open. Kenda, if you feel the need to kill, now's the time to indulge."

"There's something real bad nearby," Willow warned. "It's not far from the city right now, but it comes and goes...I think."

"Do you know what it is?" Fred asked.

"No," Willow said, fidgeting with her hair. "But it feels familiar. Don't ask me how. It's something that...that can't exactly die."

"How big?" Kenda spun and stabbed a huge cockroach-like bug.

"Bigger," Willow said as the thing twitched. "Much bigger."


	20. Generals Gathered in Their Masses

"What in the Abyss is this thing?" The Maiden with the Mirthless Smile dodged around another snapping tentacle, slashing with her daiklaive. The blade sliced its head away, but all that happened was that the tentacle melted back into the body. Humiliatingly, the Hanged Scholar's black lightnings made the creature recoil, if only for a moment.

"You're not gonna believe this," the Scholar called, "but this is the Old One that tries to come out of the Sunnydale hellmouth every couple of years!"

"This thing?" Geran Devon wheezed, dodging another tentacle. "You've fought it more than once? This hekatonchiere?"

"How do you know what it is?" Gunn asked, blocking a strike with his axe of light.

"Buffy told me about the undead," the Slayer said hastily. "This is an undead behemoth. They're just short of impossible to kill!" His dual knives slashed at it in a flurry of superfast blows, reducing a head to silvery chunks. But when he was done, more tentacles just forced their way through the gap.

Fred pivoted down off her webs on the ceiling to slice up a pair of centipede-creatures with her silver claws. As they died, the creatures collapsed into equally-silvery dust. "How'd Buffy beat this thing?"

"We always just had to close the Hellmouth on it," the Scholar warned. "Of course the last time we fought it we only had two Exalts, and Faith was still kinda wet behind the ears."

"Now you have five Celestial Exalted," the Maiden said as chains burst from her back and began to whip the monster, "and quite a few Dragon-Blooded if they can break away from the Darkbrood ambush."

Fred vanished into a blur of light and color as the hekatonchiere lunged at her, then beheaded the tentacle. Meanwhile Gunn was forced to drop backwards as the creature chewed futilely at his armor but neared his exposed face. The Scholar drew in a deep breath. "Screw it, let's do this," she snarled, and rose into the air with electricity crackling around her. Then a barrage of lightning slammed into the beast, its fluid body hissing as its tentacle-bodies were forced back into the tunnel.

Together, the Maiden and Gunn pursued it further down, her chains whipping, his axe a whirling blur of light. The tunnel rumbled, and a slab of stone dropped from the ceiling onto another tentacle as it tried to form. "Odd coincidence," Devon said. "You'd think it'd at least mess up the tunnel, but you'd be wrong." Some sort of Yozi magic, the Maiden supposed.

"It's like an ocean down there," Fred said. "I'm not sure we can kill it."

"Many hekatonchiere can be killed only by hurling them into Oblivion," the Maiden said, "but they can be forced to spend a long time regenerating. This one is very large and powerful, though." A sussurus of voices welled up in her head, but she was long familiar with the Whispers of Oblivion and hardly bothered her. The others didn't seem so lucky, not even the Scholar. "We must either press the attack or flee."

The Scholar shook it off first, at least. "Don't guess anyone can generate real sunlight?" Gunn shrugged. "Maybe it's time to slip past while it's licking its wounds?" she suggested.

Gunn glanced at the Maiden, then at Fred. "I say we take it on," he argued. The Scholar opened her mouth, but just then a cluster of Terrestrials moved into the tunnels behind them, led by Karal Linwei.

"Where is it?" Linwei asked. "I heard your discussion."

"Ahead through the left tunnel," the Maiden said. "Don't touch it with your flesh."

"Easy enough," the taimyo agreed, and made a gesture to her troops. Flame leapt from her hands and streamed down the tunnel, followed by more bursts of various energies from the others. "Keep up the barrage!" she shouted. "You Anathema, guard the flanks!"

"There'll be plenty to kill," the Scholar assured her. The Maiden shrugged; there always was.

**Chapter 110--Generals Gathered in Their Masses**

"Well. Here goes nothing." Alexander Harris, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts, stepped into the tunnel and let it close behind him and Anja. Anja gritted her teeth as raw Solar energies battered at her, but her own magic held.

It was a simple room, really. He stepped over the ribs and up to the cylindrical center that they formed from the spherical chamber, then climbed atop the pillar and folded his legs. It had been a few months now since he told Leviathan that he knew how to meditate. This was definitely not easier; the surging energy beat at him too, and only didn't kill him because it was in harmony with his own.

But the control center must have been well-designed, because it only took a matter of seconds for him to see everything. His vision stretched over hundreds of miles and picked out details he couldn't have noticed a foot in front of his face. Every little ripple in the landscape, the course of every river, the prevailing winds, all added up to the flow of essence through the land. "All things serve the Beam," he mumbled, and it was true--but there was no single Beam. In a limited way he could find some truth in it, but the Beams radiating from the Pole of Earth were latticed with a spiderweb of lesser beams that skittered here and there, hither and yon.

He stretched out his thoughts to tap a nearby line...and halted himself just in time. There was a much closer haze of spiderwebbing lines in his way. If he made any move, even the smallest, he would knock over ten dominoes by accident for every one he moved on purpose. There was plenty he could do here--but nothing _useful_.

"Crud," he said, and slid off the pillar. Anja stared at him. "Fokof could nuke us at any moment, and we're going to have to recalibrate this thing from scratch."

"That could take years," Anja murmured.

"Nah," Alexander said. "Centuries. Only we need it done yesterday, so get to work."

*****

"It fled," Karal Linwei said. "We did enough damage to chase it off."

"Keep your eyes open," Willow warned. "Don't assume it's a dumb animal. Maybe it's just running, and maybe it's planning to ambush us later."

"Old tales say the Jadeborn live under the mountain," Linwei said, "though I never thought I'd have a chance to test that out. I'd think that monster would have killed them all."

"Don't underestimate Jadeborn powers," Kenda warned. "I faced them while serving the Mask of Winters. They can be--"

A spear poked her between the ribs. Reflexively she spun and bashed the wielder in the face--or tried to, but the being vanished into the shadows. "Stop him!" she shouted.

 _How is it so fast?_ Willow wondered as the creature evaded Gunn's axe as well. In the dim light she could see more of them milling about the cavern's edges, vaguely-humanoid shapes with wrinkled skin and luminous violet eyes, crawling on the rock walls. The one that had attacked Kenda called out in a guttural clicking language, and the creatures moved in closer, surrounding the party with crude stone-tipped spears raised.

Willow lashed out with a flash of lightning, and the leader snarled. His spear came up, tip flashing golden in the anima-light, _and the lightning vanished as if grounded and drawn in_. The humanoid growled and spat unintelligible words at her.

"You are trespassers," Devon translated. "This is our realm. You cannot escape me, for I am the Light That Kills. I am...the lord of the deep world, conqueror of the Mountain Folk."

"Wait," Fred said uneasily. "Light That Kills?" She flared the empty silver circle on her forehead.

Light That Kills recoiled with a roar of shock...and a matching golden ring flared on his brow.

"They're human?" Linwei gasped.

"Yep," Gunn muttered. "They're human, and he's a Solar who's never seen the goddamn sun."

"Trippy," said Fred.

*****

"Flying blind here," Anja grumbled. "This is way out of my area of expertise."

"I'm a glorified construction worker," Xander said. "What do you--?"

"Kid," Cearr growled, "what do you think a geomancer is, if not a 'glorified construction worker'? I mean, sure, get Sulumor inside too, but you two are the closest we've got to experts on the subject up here, an you most of all."

"Just...lemme see that hammer..." Xander began to chip away at the stone base of the pillar.

"Is that wise?" Anja asked?

"It's part of the blocks," Xander grunted. "The stone's crept up and covered some of the metal filigree down here. It's like having corrosion on your batteries, they quit working. Okay, time to--"

The tunnel irised open, and a tall, swarthy man in a loincloth stalked in like a jungle cat. "So you _are_ here. I have heard the stories. The Chosen flock to your banner, and I have come to join them."

"My banner?" Xander wondered. "I mean, are you sure you're not looking for Fred, or Buffy maybe?"

"You are the Zenith," the stranger said. "Plainly you are in charge. I have come in hopes that you could help me. An Eclipse would be even better, but you will do."

"What's yer name, pal?" Cearr asked. His snarl didn't sound as unfriendly as perhaps it should have. This man was one of his kind, maybe, a fellow barbarian. "What are ya here for?"

The stranger shrugged. "I seek help in finishing my poem, that is all. My name is Filial Wisdom."

*****

Anya ducked and dodged as swirling anima-ribbons wove themselves around her. Ahn-Aru's kicks and punches were brushed aside almost without effort, the streamers of light stopping them when Anya's blocks failed. "Excellent! You're doing very well!" Anya whipped into a tight spin and kicked her fellow Sidereal into a wall.

Sad Ivory rose to her feet slowly, looking a little dazed. "You are a...very accomplished woman," she said uneasily.

"You bet I am, Bronze Medal," Anya said, smirking. Her opponent wasn't quite hot for her--that would take an even higher mastery of the martial art she was practicing--but Anya saw the disturbed fascination in Ahn-Aru's eyes. "I hope you know what you're in for."

Sad Ivory offered her a hand. "Time to break for food. Do you...want to eat together? I know all about Sapphire Veils of Passion style, Anya, likely more than you do, but training you matters more than trivial personal consequences. You understand?"

Anya accepted the gesture. "I understand that sooner or later you'll get the same sort of hit in on me. No skin off my nose, not now that things have settled down between me and Xander."

They took lunch out on the balcony. For the first time in millennia, the Games of Divinity were silent, leaving the sky vacant and dark. "Do you think it's true," Sad Ivory asked, "that the Sun is really dead?"

"I had this out with Iron Siaka," Anya told her. "If the Sun is dead, it isn't because he lost. He had a good reason for dying. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi if that plot had actually made any sense at all."

"Most of my fellow Bronzes think the Incarnae have decided to intervene, and Ignis Divine is somewhere in Creation." Ahn-Aru's tone was hopeful, but she shook her head as if she realized how unlikely that was.

"Still have no idea where Luna or the Maidens are, even if Ignis is dead," Anya said thoughtfully. "What happens if people keep worshipping a dead god?"

"Eventually a new god will form from the concept of the worship itself," Ahn-Aru said. "Everything of Creation has a god. But it wouldn't be an Incarna, at least not for a long time. There's supposed to be a method of anointing another deity to move up the chain of being, but they say it's a lost rite."

"Who says?" Anya asked around her chicken wrap, "That isn't something that needs to be secret right now."

"Tell you what," Sad Ivory said. "Let's go look it up. Then we can fight some more once we find out."

"Are you hitting on me?" Anya joked.

Sad Ivory blushed and said nothing at all.

*****

"Tell you what," Alexander said. "Let me get this thing in working order and then we'll talk. I need to be ready to parry a nuclear weapon. No time for poetry till--"

He stopped. He stopped because Filial Wisdom had lifted him bodily into the air by an arm and a leg. "You will find no salvation here," Wisdom told him. "Only in death shall Creation be redeemed, death and consumption by the god Han-Tha!"

"I hope you'll excuse me if that doesn't sound like a reasonable plan," Alexander said, "because, pretty sure I've had this discussion before, heaven isn't something the world gets sucked into!" If this had happened to him a year ago, that would have been all, and from Wisdom's reaction he would've been tossed into the wall or maybe out of the giant statue altogether. Instead, he whipped out Wavecleaver with his off hand--cutting the scabbard badly due to the angle, but oh well--and brought it around to stab the big world-sucking-cultist asshole in the chest.

Filial Wisdom tanked the thrust and hurled Alexander into the wall _anyway_ , at which point Alexander realized he might have a bit of a problem here. "Whoever you faced before, it was not Han-Tha! Han-Tha is the true way, the devourer who can and will remake the world! All glory to decay! All glory to Han-Tha!"

Suddenly, from the sound of things, Anja was all over him, clawing and biting. Alexander wasn't entirely sure because he was getting up from an awkward angle and for the moment all he could see was Cearr facepalming. Before he could speak, Cearr shouted, "Listen to me, you dumb prick! Han-Tha is fucking _nothing_! He's a god. Back in the day, folks like us ate gods for breakfast and washed them down with water elementals. Even if he was right, Metagaos did it first and better, and y'know what? Metagaos got his ass kicked too! You really think the world ought to be eaten and crapped out? Eat it yourself!"

Filial Wisdom managed to hurl Anja off him--she was in a state Alexander'd never seen before, a giant cat-monster-girl like Fred's humanoid squid or Levi's whale-man. That gave Alexander an idea. "Grab him, Cearr!" He lunged at the nutcase from the left, Cearr came at him from the right, and Filial Wisdom managed to duck them both, damn it! Except Anja was right in his way, and she seized the guy by the foot, tripping him up.

Alexander poured more of his energy into the portal, and it opened right in front of the stumbling asshole Solar, because Anja knew exactly what the Dread Pirate was up to, of course.

Filial Wisdom teetered there on the brink, then spun around gracefully and began to regain his footing. Only that was when Cearr slammed into him with a crash like metal ringing on metal, and both of them toppled into the tunnel together. For an instant it looked infinitely long, as it had from the outside; then it closed, leaving Cearr and Wisdom to go (presumably) plummeting down the front of the mountain-sized statue.

"Did Cearr just kill himself to beat that guy?" Anja asked, staring at the exit in shock.

"Nah. Cearr doesn't mind the sudden stop at the bottom, unlike most of us. The worst he's got to deal with is city guards and climbing back up. Indigestion Boy, on the other hand...." Alexander picked himself up. "Let's get back to work. We have to get this done."

*****

In principle, Light That Kills ought to have been easy meat, thought the Maiden with the Mirthless Smile. But there was a problem. Wasn't there always?

For one thing, it seemed that all these Underfolk were essence-users. And their hidden master must have had some time to teach them his powers. Compared to a true Exalt, they were nothing, but there were dozens of them, perhaps scores, all slashing out with fragments of a Solar's skill and might.

For another, that pitiful orichalcum-tipped spear was no indication of the dark-dwellers' level of technology. Perhaps they had mastered only the rote use of the tunnels' defenses, but periodically the battlefield rumbled with shifting stone or flared with lightning that hadn't come from the Scholar.

The Maiden cut them down. It was what she did. But the noise of battle drew more of them, with no way to know how many there were. How long had Light That Kills lived down here? How big was his kingdom?

By the Abyss, if any Solar could have escaped the Usurpation, it would have been one of these Underpeople, hidden away down here in utter dark. Surely not, though. Surely such an ancient monster could have slaughtered them all by now. Surely he would have ruled the world from below.

"This way!" Fred yelled, and the Maiden fought to direct the battle toward her call. Fred was an improviser without compare. If she wanted--

The Maiden sliced through an assailant's skull, and he crumbled into silver dust. "Vodak!" the cry went up among the subterraneans. "Vodak!" Light That Kills bellowed, and sunlight erupted from him like an explosion. His people cowered, burning, but the simulacra among them were seared to ash in an instant. "Slay it!" he roared, and even the Maiden understood that one word of Old Realm. That was why they had been here. Maybe that was why the hekatonchiere had been here. They were hunting the beast.

"This way!" Fred called again. This time the Maiden ran toward her, and underfolk pelted after her, screeching and swarming over the walls.

"Follow Fred!" the Maiden shouted. "Follow me!" That wasn't just anima-light. It was the real thing. Down here in the dark, a Solar had become a bit of sun.

Suddenly they were stumbling into a wider hallway. Where was Charles? Had she lost him? She would torture to slow death anyone who had killed him! No, there he was, only a little the worse for wear. Just winded.

Just off the hallway was a small room, and Fred was standing inside it. Just standing, beckoning. The Maiden started toward her, and Light That Kills fell onto Kenda's back with a shriek. She clawed for him, but he shifted faster than she could maneuver her sword to strike. Instead, she freed the chains from her back and hurled his glowing form into the room with Fred.

The innermost wall burst alight with the eight-pointed star of the Sun and Gaia's circle-and-cross. A message appeared below, but she was too far away to read it before the wall faded entirely.

They were in.

Black-and-silver tentacles flowed after them.

So was Vodak.

*****

"Got it?" Sulumor poked her head inside. "The Roseblack is getting jittery since you booted that fellow. Cearr is fine, by the way. He's still climbing."

"Getting ready for a test fire," Alexander said. "I think I've got it unblocked, but in case anything goes wrong I'm going to be sticking with something small."

"Be very careful," Anja warned.

"Always," he said, nodding. Alexander climbed back onto the pillar and crossed his legs. "Here we go. One dragon line. Three, two...one."

The earth shook with sudden thunder.

*****

Light That Kills was still glowing, and Vodak burned at the touch of his anima, but the hekatonchiere pressed the attack. The Maiden understood: something down here could kill it. So did Charles; "Devon," he yelled, "you gotta get us through that lock, now!"

"Doing all I can," the boy shouted back. He grimaced and laid a bloody palm on the wall, which dissolved into a murmuring swarm of text. It still didn't let him through, but the Slayer whispered key phrases at it that slid into spaces between the words. The door rumbled and slid open just as it reverted to being matter. "Got it!"

"Another door," Willow groaned.

Beetles oozed out of the walls, and the tunnel began to spin. As it picked up speed, the beetles coalesced into a towering figure composed of skittering bugs. "Password please," it said politely. "Only those authorized by the Solar Deliberative may pass."

"Aw, hell," Gunn muttered.

The Scholar stepped up to the scarab guardian. "I've got your password," she said, and held up a little device that looked Luthean to the Maiden's unpracticed eye. "See?" Symbols began to flash across the screen at a pace no mortal could have read.

"Number of attempts exceeded," the spirit said at once. "You may not pass." The Scholar put her hand to her face and blasted the guardian with lightning, but all it did was drop into a defensive position.

"Fred," the Scholar called, "get ready to do the new thing you do! The locks are in the holes! But first we have to kill it. I'm sorry," she said to the god. "I know you're just doing your job."

The chamber was dissolving into a brawl so thick that only she and Gunn seemed able to follow what was happening. No, Devon was managing, too, but he had gotten thoroughly separated from the rest. Fred sidestepped an attack by Vodak tentacles, which wrapped around the guardian instead and squeezed. Only a few bugs escaped its grip, and Gunn quickly stomped those flat. "Now what?" he yelled. "The mechanism's inside those holes?"

Fred took a deep breath. "Here goes," she said, and cockroaches swarmed out every orifice on her body, the swarm swelling over her until it was all that remained. Gunn whistled and shook his head as the swarm dispersed into the holes. The door swung open onto a wide, well-lit street inside a curving tunnel--just like the others in Gethamane.

"Go, go, go!" Gunn yelled, and the battle spilled out into the street. Roaches piled on top of one another until they composed a human-sized mass, and fused into Fred again. She made a face, just as a pair of Underfolk crashed into her.

So this was the target? Where were the reality engines she had been told about? "It's like a whole city," she breathed. "But it's empty. All dead." Not undead, dead.

It was even better than Thorns.

*****

Daniel shook his head regretfully. The explosion hadn't reached him or the Executor; somehow, it had converged on Harmony herself. He couldn't see her from where he was chained, but there was little question that she had been burned to--

"Ow," said Harmony as her head rose above the steps. "That stung." The half-circle mark on her forehead shone like the sun. She seemed to be aware that she was being stared at. "C'mon, guys," she said with a sigh, "everything went according to plan."


	21. Just Like Witches At Black Masses

_Mary Celeste._ That was what this was like.

The hidden layer of Gethamane was built like a small city of its own--a neighborhood at least--cut off from the rest. Still and silent enough never to have been occupied...yet it clearly had. Even in the three-way battle between them, Vodak, and the Moloids led by Light That Kills, Fred could see the signs. A pile of dessicated clothes, left in the street, dry-rotted yet undisturbed in the unnaturally-still air. An armory standing open, most of its contents removed. Fred picked up the moonsilver device lying on the threshold, which looked familiar, a cylinder with a switch like a flashlight. The switch wouldn't budge for her. Some sort of car even sat abandoned on the street; too many parts were worn out by time for her to tell what the breakdown had been.

Vodak apparently wasn't capable of telling that it was fighting two enemies. A trio of ersatz dwarven warriors charged at her as she struggled with a couple of Moloids. Were there actual dwarves here that Vodak had fought? One attacked her with its axe, while the other two assailed the underpeople. Her silver claws were effective enough, but she really wanted to know what the cylinder was. She felt for the power relays and poured energy into them.

A lance of silver-blue light burst from the lens and shot out about a foot and a half...and stopped there. Willow caught sight of her holding it and her sunken eyes lit up. "Woot! Go Jedi Fred!"

"I feel like I'm in the Wyld or something!" she called back. "I'm fighting Moloids with a lightsaber and Wolverine claws!" She impaled two of the dwarves on the energy blade, then flicked it sideways to behead the last. The Moloids backed away.

Karal Linwei emerged from the auditorium and called out, "We have a problem! I can't work out the code on this lock!" Willow ran up to her and vanished into the building, asking questions that Fred couldn't hear.

The Maiden spotted Fred's weapon and gave her a toothy, approving smile. "Everyone check that armory!" she shouted. "See what they've left behind!" She didn't sheathe her own blade as she stepped inside, and she did look around for traps. After about three tense minutes while Fred struggled with a tall, slender Vodak-elf, the Maiden came back out with a golden axe. "Charles!" She flung the axe over everyone's heads, and Gunn had to jump up onto the car's hood to grab it. His hands closed on the haft, and ice coalesced onto the blade in an instant.

"Kickass!" Gunn yelled, and beheaded a Moloid with it at once. The body froze as it toppled. Fred couldn't deny it was a cool weapon, ha ha.

Then Willow came running out again. "Fred, it's that stupid weird astrology stuff they use! I don't know anything about it!"

"You can't crack the code?" Now Fred was worried. "But we're so close! I'll go look, you keep zapping monsters!"

Trouble was, she didn't understand local astrology any better than Willow. She raced past the benches to get a good look at the combination lock, but she sure as hell couldn't make it out either. "Crud! I should've known we were missing something. It was too easy!" After a few seconds of study, it was clear that she was out of her depth. "I'm going back to the fight," she grumbled. "We'll figure it out."

She re-emerged onto the street to find the battle had shifted. Willow, though, was still nearby, carefully studying a mass of Vodak tentacles. "Nothing alive," she said absently, and made the sign of Essence Consumed.

It wasn't even that powerful a spell. It was meant to destroy objects, not beings. But it didn't seem to have been created with ghostly plasm in mind. Black-and-grey flames burst out of Vodak's body, and screaming echoed in Fred's mind. Several tentacles burned to silvery ash...but then the fire stopped as if it had hit a wall. "Disappointed now," Willow mumbled. "I _need_ necromancy."

"Let's retreat into the auditorium," Fred suggested. "We can barricade the doors."

"No," Willow insisted. "It has to die."

"How are we going to do that?" Fred asked her, looking around. Had everyone else kept battling on around the curve of the city? "We don't have--" The monster struck at her, and Fred sliced a head away.

"We will," Willow said stubbornly. She raised a hand. "I know. Why didn't I think of teleporting it? A mile up, and it'll never get back past the seals and locks."

"It'll eat the whole city!" Fred warned.

"It won't keep us from saving the world, though," Willow growled. "I have to do it. Maha--"

Fred decked her. "I'm not letting you do that," she said as Willow rose back to her feet. "I can't. I love you, Will, but obviously I can't trust you any more."

Willow nodded pensively. "I was waiting for you to say that." And she spoke a different set of words, something darker, like the whispers Vodak was making in Fred's mind. Then she dropped to the floor and slapped her hand against it. A black handprint seared itself into the stone; moments later, skeletal hands burst through for yards around and seized at everyone present but Willow.

Which was to say, at Fred and Vodak. Fred leapt aside easily, but for the huge spectral beast that proved to be a problem. The hands knotted themselves into its semifluid bulk and held it fast.

"It's okay that you don't trust me any more," Willow said. "You shouldn't, and I don't deserve it."

"Is that why you've been acting creepy?" Fred wanted to know.

"I've been acting creepy because I'm an Abyssal," Willow said. "That's not going to change any time soon. I'm just not good enough to figure out how. Sorry." Without another word, she dashed back inside, leaving Fred with no choice but to follow or be left behind.

The hands didn't stop grabbing, but now Fred was mad enough to slice them to pieces as she passed.

**Chapter 111--Just Like Witches at Black Masses**

Prudence came into the conference room lugging a block of ice on her back. In it was embedded a distorted humanoid shape with limbs that billowed like clouds of smoke. President Lilah narrowed her lips. The face belonged to Tara Maclay. "And you brought this dangerous alien android to me...why, exactly?"

The remaining sisters entered behind Prudence with a second android wearing manacles. "We're hoping you could help us interrogate them," Piper said. "Don't go all nervous on us. We know you have powers too."

Lilah pressed her hands to her temples. "I have got to get the White House restored. Where's my security detail, anyway?"

Phoebe gave her a guileless smile. "I told them you'd gotten away from them and they were needed in the next building over. They seemed to think I was their superior."

Lilah let out a heavy sigh. "I need to introduce you to my Chief of Staff, but she's off carrying out a...diplomatic offensive. The problems of having superheroes in the government are not the ones we expected, are they?" She reached out to touch a keypad. "D'Hoffryn, I need that Arashmaharr gate." Silence. "D'Hoffryn?" The president rolled her eyes. "I may have to kick some demon ass. You're welcome to join me."

Paige shrugged. "It's what we're made for."

"Unfortunately I have an oath of office to attend to," Lilah muttered. "Enemies foreign and domestic to defend the country from."

"You don't really seem like the oath-keeping type," Piper said. Lilah thought she was rolling her blank white eyes, but it was hard to say.

"Depends on what I get out of it." Lilah got to her feet. "Colonel O'Neill isn't going to be happy with me, but I need to get back in the field, and taking you four just might keep him from throwing a tantrum."

*****

"I want all of you to be clear on this," Jack O'Neill said carefully. "There are weapons and tactics designed to intimidate your enemy. They have their uses. Personally, I prefer methods that _kill_ the enemy."

"But sir," Samantha Finn protested, "surely there are plenty of situations where intimidating the enemy is the right thing to do."

"There certainly are," O'Neill acknowledged, "and as your commanding officer I get to decide which is which."

"So the Exaltation Initiative--" Riley began.

"Is being folded under my command," O'Neill confirmed. "We're moving on Chicago in half an hour. I expect you--all of you--to follow my orders regardless of your service branches."

"Used to that, sir," Riley said. "I'm just glad you're not going to wear Air Force gloves."

Carter choked back a laugh. The expression meant "to stand around with your hands in your pockets." "The colonel doesn't do that," she confirmed. "Neither do I."

"The real difference about this mission," O'Neill warned, "is that we have to watch the C-in-C's six. Yes, that is completely freaking insane. We're doing it anyway. Keep in mind that Morgan is as big a superhero as the rest of us. In principle she can handle herself."

"In practice," Carter added, "we don't want Helen Brucker having to take the oath of office. If the POTUS takes so much as a scratch, and it won't lead to Earth dying, we scrub the mission."

"The colonel is right," Finn said. "The whole idea is nuts. How are we supposed to be effective like that?"

"I promise," came a voice from nowhere, "I'm not exactly easy to target." Dust coalesced out of the air like a vampire disintegrating in reverse: skeleton, organs, skin, clothes--and there was President Morgan. "And the task force is going to be too large for me to be an obvious target. The Alchemicals and their zomborgs won't know what hit them."

"Is this even legal?" Carter asked. "The law says you're a civilian."

Lilah shrugged. "Ask Washington. He led troops in battle while in office. No, it's not usually a good idea. Nothing about me, or this situation, is usual."

Riley sighed. "I suppose you're right, Madam President."

"In any case, nothing prevents civilians from being attached to a military command," Lilah argued, "which is why you're taking on four more of us."

"The Maclay sisters?" Carter said, trying to keep her voice neutral. There were going to be a lot of civilians in this fight.

"That's us," said the youngest-looking, who _also_ materialized out of thin air, this one in a spray of sparkling lights. Her sisters at least walked in normally.

"I think you'll be surprised what we can accomplish," the oldest said. The middle sisters exchanged skeptical looks, though.

"Well," the colonel drawled. "Let's go find out."

*****

"Are you ready?" Tara asked Dark Eyes.

"We are," he said calmly. He did everything calmly, since learning that Raksi was gone. Unless it had something to do with Cousin Beth; she didn't understand that at all. "We will pick up my people, as many as your transport can hold, and move toward the Blessed Isle."

"You don't mind doing this?"

"My people have been at war at Raksi's command for many years. Though I wish peace for them, there will be no peace if what you say is true." Dark Eyes rose from the table. "Some will die. I know this. It cannot be avoided. But we will preserve as many as we can."

"Unless I hear otherwise," Tara warned, "we're going to land on the shore across from the Blessed Isle. From there till battle starts, keep quiet and don't use any obvious magic. The tribes need to stay out of the city as much as possible."

"But when battle begins, then I can assume my war form?" Tara nodded. "Might I see yours? I have yet to know your spirit form."

Tara blushed faintly. "I c-can't actually p-put on a war form yet."

"It's easy," Dark Eyes said patiently. "It was one of the first things I learned. Here. Let me show you." His muscles bulged, bulking out his form until he stood nine feet high, with a lionlike face and mane. His feet and hands were little more than sharpened silver daggers. "Try it. Feel for the boundary between your spirit shape and your human one."

It should be natural to her. Tara closed her eyes. She was an anaconda, slender compared to her human self but twenty feet long, covered in sleek scales, flexible, powerful...

Scales burst out across her body, not just those of her tell, but shifting, reforming--belly scutes, facial plates. Her arms grew wiry, well-muscled but narrow, with clawed fingers. Her legs vanished into a thick tail as her body stretched out longer and longer. Her mouth filled with short fangs as her face stretched and popped. "I d-don't know how often I'll ussse thiss," she warned.

"You'll use it when you need to," Beth said softly as she re-entered the hall. "Isn't that right, Dark Eyes?"

The more-experienced Lunar flinched. What was going on between them? "Yes, that is--"

Beth sidled up and slid an arm around Dark Eyes' upper thigh--clearly she would've preferred his waist, but it was out of reach. "You'll come with us, of course, but leave the civilians in their homes. Like your wife, for instance. No need to risk them."

"Civil...?" 

"Noncombatants," Tara supplied.

"Of course I will only bring those who can fight," Dark Eyes said, "but that includes First Iris of Spring. She would be displeased if I left her behind. Many women of the Ten Tribes fight, and well."

"That's okay then," Beth said, and frowned. Tara tried again to add up what was happening and failed again. Beth had often been unpleasant, but only because she believed what her family had told her; she'd never been a hypocrite. "We'll try to make sure she stays out of the worst fighting, where the Exalted are."

"I would be in your debt if you can manage that," Dark Eyes said, though he sounded doubtful. Beth smiled sweetly up at him, and Tara heard him swallow from across the room. Wait. If Beth was his Solar...ish mate...well, Buffy was Tara's and they didn't feel that way, but Fred had implied they were in the minority.

 _Of course they are, you fool!_ The realization wasn't quite a voice in her head, but it certainly came from the remnants of Ma-Ha-Suchi that lived there. _What else could compete so strongly with true love, save for a love buried still deeper?_ Tara tried not to grimace. She could use access to the Elder's ancient memories, but trying to dig that deep would likely open her first to the era he'd spent as a raging monster. Tara wasn't sure she wasn't already too open to that. Lytek had been right to erase conscious memory of the Exaltations' prior hosts.

"Where the loggers have gone," Beth said, "I can make the forest return."

"That would be a great blessing as well," Dark Eyes told her, "but is that truly a power you have?"

Beth bent down and touched the floor, and twisted vines and seedling trees burst from it. If that was all she could do, she was lying; Tara had seen this sort of growth wither and die a day after its creation. Before she could speak, though, Beth hastily added "This is just a demonstration. Making something more permanent would take a little while."

"Then your gift of fertility is welcome among the Tribes," Dark Eyes said warmly. "We will cast out the loggers and their foreign, 'civilized' ways, and restore the jungle forever."

Tara couldn't help feel a bit of satisfaction as Beth went a little pale.

*****

"I mean, it's not like I'm a witch or anything," Harmony said as she prised the cover off its panel. Access panels were a little sparse out here, but they existed. Not like the old days when the Poles had been mostly empty.

Daniel looked at Executor, and Executor looked back. "I rather believe you are," Executor said. "Is that not the very definition of a necromancer?"

Harmony frowned. "Um...yeah, kinda. Darn. No tram service for miles. I may have to get creative." She looked around the exterior of the Viator's lab, but all she could see was broken machines.

"Creative necromancy doesn't really sound like a good thing to me," Daniel said, shifting his feet.

"No, no, that's all the problem," Harmony insisted. "Nobody ever tries to get really innovative with necromancy cause it's all Abyssals doing it and they just wanna kill stuff."

"What is it you wish to do with necromancy?" Executor asked.

"I wanna figure out how to bring stuff back to life," Harmony said. Everyone said it was impossible, but there were some limited ways now. "Also, I want to know how to manipulate Lethe." She got out some salt and chalk and started marking off boundaries. 

"The river Lethe?" Daniel wondered. "The metaphysical boundary between life and death that erased memories prior to reincarnation? You want to mess with people's minds?"

"What? No! I want to work on the reincarnation part," she explained. "If I can't bring people back to life directly, maybe I can do it indirectly. And that's not even touching the big problem."

"Which problem is that?" Daniel asked.

Harmony shrugged. "The Neverborn, silly."

Daniel and Executor exchanged glances again. "Indeed," said the Executor.

"So what are you planning?" Daniel asked.

"We're in a Blight Zone," Harmony explained. "Some of the creatures here--spirits, exmachina, and creatures like that--are just sick. But some of them are dead."

"Nothing here is dead or alive," Daniel argued. "It's all machines."

"Indeed," Executor said again. "But machines here are the flesh of Autochthon or his creations. They do indeed live and die."

"Gotcha," Harmony said. She put her hand on the carcass of a fix beetle. Not the one that had merged with her, poor thing--that one's components were scattered beyond even reanimation--but a much bigger one, maybe five feet long. "Get ready to ride an undead robot." And she began to work and chant.

*****

"...and a sign of Endings ought to complete the cycle," Willow reasoned. They'd made it through one barrier, only to find themselves before a second, in a zone clearly designed to hurt creatures of darkness like herself. Except it did nothing at all. It might have been damaged, but Willow worried that it had to do with whatever had turned the sun red. Too bad there were no vampires here to test crosses on.

Fred pressed the last button, and finally, at last, the door cycled open and let them through. Vodak still raged impotently outside, though it had freed itself from the zombie hands.

"So this is it?" Karal Linwei breathed. "The core of the reality engine facility?"

"Not exactly," Devon said. "The engines themselves are another ring in. But this is the control center." He pointed to a sign set into a little console niche. Aside from that, the niche held only a big button under a clear plate and a pair of keys to turn. "Easy to activate."

"And now we stand by," Gunn said unhappily. "We're here to be a threat, but if we actually set this thing off--"

"Creation goes all cockeyed," Willow said unhappily. "So now we're stuck here with a bunch of bored Dragon-Blooded, a confused Moloid Solar and his lost tribe, and a hekatonchiere outside waiting for us to leave."

"Oy gevalt," the Maiden said. Willow stared at her. "Did I use the expression right?"

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "I think you've got it down."

*****

"Here's the thing," Faith grunted, crashing her hooves into the Beast's rocky hide. "You're late, both of you. You waited too damn long, and now your plan's all fucked up."

Amy battered Skip with white fire from the other side. Not too hard, though--she didn't want him to actually start melting. "The world's changing too fast for you. Sorry."

"Fool," the Beast rumbled. "You don't even understand who, or what, our master is. You haven't taken the time." His jagged fists crashed down on Faith's back.

"The Viator is nothing," Skip warned. "His vision of the Bleeding Engine was never more than fantasy. The Engine of Extinction... _he_ is inevitable."

"Maybe," Amy said, dodging a shredding blade. "But you aren't." A pulse of space detonated, forcing him to stumble backwards just as Faith kicked the Beast forward again. The two collided, and the Beast's jagged stone pierced Skip's metal skin, while Skip's bladed head sliced into the Beast's hide. Together they sank to the ground, dead.

"What do they mean?" Faith asked. "Didn't leave anyone alive to ask."

Amy shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough. At least, I hope we will."


	22. War Machine

"Buffy," Dawn asked, "why have you got three of the same book on the table?"

"Four," Buffy said, removing the latest copy from her pack. "I'm cross-referencing. Mnemon only owns one copy, so I've been stealing the others when I come across 'em. Nobody here needs the things anyway." She set the new book down on the huge stone table, opening it to the same page as the others. "I probably shouldn't dive in too deep myself."

"Can even you be trusted to read those safely?" Son of Crows asked.

"Here?" Buffy said. "Yup. On the Blessed Isle, I'm an illegal immigrant and an Anathema. Everything I do is against the law. I'm more powerful here than anywhere short of Yu-Shan, and that includes resisting temptation."

"An irony the Dragon-Blooded doubtless cannot appreciate," said Meticulous Owl.

"Anyway," Buffy said, "I've always been pretty good at shaking off mental stuff. If anyome can cross-reference the _Broken-Winged Crane_ , I'm your perfect princess for the job."

"Doesn't Mnemon have enough books of her own?" Dawn asked, waving her hands aroumd at the immense collection of shelved books.

"Well, sure," Buffy agreed, "but just because I can do a thing doesn't make it fun. I'd go stir-crazy in here just reading. And anyway, I'm trying to keep training my powers as much as possible. I'm gonna need them soon."

"Training in sorcery?" Mnemon said, casually strolling down the broad stairway carrying baby California in her swaddling blankets. "I have many safer books."

Buffy shrugged. "I've got time. Why spend it sleeping? Not like I need to patrol in these parts." She sat down in the massive stone chair and began comparing copies. "Metagaos should be happier after this, even if it's not technically his."

"Wood Dragon's Claw?" Son of Crows guessed. "Is that really useful to you? It's not the most powerful of combat magics."

Dawn giggled. "Mister, you have no idea."

**Chapter 112--War Machine**

The gateway rippled with light and shadow. Tepet Fokof raised an eyebrow and chuckled. Who was coming from heaven to meet with him now? A Sidereal? The Bronze Faction was in disarray, the Gold Faction would want nothing to do with him, and except for not-Shaia, he knew of no Brass Faction. Perhaps there was one. Or perhaps some god had come to see him. Rumor had it a coup had somehow prevailed against the Unconquered Sun himself, but who could have defeated him?

The intruder stepped into the palace, and Fokof was forced to restrain his laughter. The Sidereal's false destinies meant nothing to him, so he saw a man in rumpled tweed step through. Grey-brown hair, spectacles, the air of a scribe about him. He carried only a starmetal wrackstaff, which was locked through the elbow joints of a supremely-beautiful woman with pitch-black eyes and barbed silken hair.

"Ambassador," Fokof said, addressing not the Sidereal but his captive, Marilaq a'Lam herself, the demon-blood ambassador from hell to heaven. "What--or should I perhaps ask who--brings you here?"

"You know I can't answer that," Marilaq growled. "A Sidereal, that's all I know. He's given me no name, only demands that I come with him to speak to you."

"Rupert Giles," the Sidereal said. "And you, of course, are the Scarlet Empress." Fokof nearly burst out laughing. He had the advantage here, for certain; the Sidereal saw only his disguise and probably expected that Fokof saw only his.

"Yes, indeed," Fokof answered. "I am she. Now may I ask why you invade my home with a laughably-inadequate hostage? For you must realize that no love is lost between hell and heaven."

"I'm sure it isn't," the scholar said. "But you misapprehend the situation. I was once the sifu of Buffy Summers, whom I believe you know and work with. If you are her ally, you have nothing to fear from me... _Regent_."

Fokof froze. The intruder wouldn't give away advantage so carelessly unless he had more, or at least believed he did. "Release the ambassador, and we will talk."

"Of course," Giles said, and slid the wrackstaff free. "In point of fact, I was removing her from a dangerous situation. Heaven is in a bit of disarray right now. Ignis Divine is dead." Marilaq rubbed her forearms as he sat down, casually, on the table next to the Scarlet Throne. "The Incarnae appear to be in hiding. I've come to contact my student and help prepare our next move."

Fokof pursed his lips and nodded. The question was, was this man working in tandem with Buffy, or had she fooled him? "Buffy is residing in a villa with Mnemon near the coast. The stories say they've married. More importantly, I'm told that a number of unsavory characters are also residing there. What would you have her do?"

"That depends on the Yozis' plans, and for that I'm dependent on others for information." Giles patted one of the dragon heads on the throne, which thankfully didn't respond to him. "What can you tell me?"

"The rumors of the Ebon Dragon's wedding are a ruse," Fokof said, smoothly formulating a plan. "The actual plan is to subvert the team in Gethamane, at the Cincture of Creation. The Yozis can most easily be released into Creation by substituting a Third-Circle demon for the protoshinmaic vortex at its heart, thereby making them new pseudoelemental Poles. The real action, I'm afraid, will take place far from here."

Giles absorbed all that easily, even the technical bits--no doubt making use of Sidereal magics, but at the end he frowned. "Then all this--the plot to take over the Sword of Creation, the replacement of the Empress--is one colossal ruse?"

"The greatest deception ever made," Fokof said. "I still get my reward, in any case; I will rule Creation under the Yozis."

Giles seemed to accept this, at least provisionally. The more fool he. The plan in question had been considered, but the Ebon Dragon at least had no wish to be bound permanently into Creation any more than into hell. "All right," he said. "I still need to reach Buffy."

"I'll be happy to tell you where she is," Fokof said with a smile. After all, nothing Giles could do with his Slayer had any bearing on the plan now.

*****

"Gyaah!" Fred moaned. "Why did I ask how things could get worse?"

Karal Linwei crouched beside her. "At least you needn't worry about dying _of_ childbirth. Though this does seem like unusually-difficult labor."

"Leviathan's a big, big guy," Fred said through gritted teeth.

Linwei waved a hand at her soldiers. "She's in labor! Don't just stand about, try to find water and some cloth!"

"Taimyo? She's Anathema--" one of them began.

"She's a woman having a baby, and she's saved your posteriors a dozen times already on our way down here!" Linwei made an exasperated growl. "There's nothing impious about honor and gratitude!" A little reluctantly, the soldiers followed orders.

Someone knocked on the door, and Willow nearly hit her head on a console jumping up. Outside a window stood an unfamiliar woman with dark, dark skin and dusky red hair. Fred had never seen anyone who looked like that, but she had heard of people in Egypt who did. "Hey," the stranger called cheerily. "I came through the Yu-Shan gate in the tunnels. I heard you needed help."

"How can we trust you?" Willow asked. "I don't know anything about a gate down here."

"They said you might say that, so I brought a friend!" The stranger tugged someone into view.

"Hi, Willow, Fred! My profits are completely nuts up there! I've had a slum torn down for renovation!"

Fred and Willow shared a look. "That's Anya all right," Willow agreed. "Let them in."

Anya and the unfamiliar Sidereal raced through the door and let Gunn lock it again. Fred narrowed her eyes. Did she know this other woman with Anya? She was having trouble remembering how she knew Anya, honestly. She probably should--"Ahhh! Crud! Oww!"

"I see you're having the baby!" Anya said, beaming. "I'll buy him all kinds of presents! Half-caste babies are such a good investment!"

"Anya, who's your friend?" Willow asked.

"Oh, you've met. This is Gracious Shaia. You don't remember her, but you fought together at Gem. She's a big name in Gold Faction!" 

Fred nodded slowly. "No, I...I don't remember her." _Shouldn't I? Why, though?_ "If she's here to help, I'm okay with her."

"Who was that with you?" Willow asked, frowning slightly.

Shaia tilted her head. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. It's just us. Are you okay?"

"I was sure I saw...never mind."

"Well, keep your eyes open," Shaia said. "The Yozis want to use the reality engines here to forge themselves into part of Creation. We need to get the rest of the way in and disable the Cincture so that can't happen."

"Could be a problem," Gunn said. "Nobody knows the password to those doors. Even Willow and Fred together ain't been able to figure it out."

"Allow me to work on the problem," Shaia said. "I have resources you may not."

"Be our guest," Willow told her.

*****

Cearr was most of the way back up the Penitent when he felt the surge and rush of essence being used still higher, somewhere near the control chamber...but not the right kind of power to be Roberts testing the statue. It felt more like a god...or one of the damned Sidereals. He crested the last ridge, and there on the statue's brow, a yard away from the entrance, a little man in a cleverly-woven but stupid-looking suit was standing in front of the gate to Yu-Shan.

"You!" Cearr hollered. "Tell me who you are before I eat your head an' shit your brains out!" There was a small chance he was insulting a really powerful old master in a really good disguise, but this man looked afraid of his own shadow.

"Wesley Wyndham-Price, Chosen of Journeys!" the skinny man called back. "I've been sent to help Alexander Harris!"

"Y'ain't s'posed to tell me that stuff," Cearr growled, hauling himself up the last yard or so. "Where's your cover identity?"

"Deemed unnecessary for this mission," the Sid said. "You and Sulumor wouldn't be affected, Alexander needs to know who he's dealing with, and the rest will forget me soon enough anyway. Nor am I compromising a civilian identity that never existed here to begin with."

The door into the statue roiled open, and Roberts emerged. "Wussley," he said. "Nah, guess I can't call you that any more. You said you'd come to help? Thanks, but I'm pretty sure I've got it working."

"Then I'm here just in time," Wesley said. "You're close, very close, but if you try to use the Penitent now you'll do subtle damage that will be all the worse later. I've brought the original specifications and some jade components that will complete the repairs."

"Thanks," Roberts said gratefully. "You safe to come inside?"

In response, the Sidereal held up a wrist, with the bracelet of a set of discreet essence armor clearly visible. "I'll manage," he said. "It should be safe enough."

"If you trust him, Roberts," Cearr said roughly.

"More than I trust you, Conan," Roberts said, and opened the door again. Cearr had to admit he was a pretty smart guy.

*****

Cordelia furled her wings and descended toward the jungle. Flying was amazing, but this look was not at all what she'd had in mind for her first excursion as a Sidereal. She wondered if, in spite of her claims to have changed, Iron Siaka was trolling her.

Technically the feathered cloak was a disguise, as was the ridiculous parrot mask, but anyone who looked at her would see a woman who was half-bird--a parrot-woman with rainbow feathers, supposedly native to a spot just inside Creation, one of a cluster of tribal zones in a jungle full of furries. So, so, so not in accordance with her self-image. At least no one had looked at her twice once she got out of the vicinity of the Yu-Shan gate.

Creation was _huge_. She wondered how much the rest of the Scoobies realized just how much of it they were hopscotching over. There. There was the break in the jungle. The spires of Sperimen. The clearing was full of people...oh! There was Tara.

She barely knew Tara. They'd only met after coming to rescue Buffy and hadn't exactly hit it off. The shy witch stayed with Willow almost all the time. Until Raksi came for her, apparently, and since then she'd been spending a lot more time on her own.

Cordelia alit on the porch of the main square, where Tara and some girl who looked a bit like her and _hello salty goodness!_ "Ah...hi, I'm Cordelia Chase and I'm here to make sure you have a great experience at the University of Sperimen _sir_!" Her borrowed wings of the raptor settled over her shoulders like a thicker cloak, thankfully not making the heat worse. "Tara, it's time for us to be on the move."

Tara looked her straight in the eye. "Who are you again?"

"Ugggh! Cordelia Chase. I'm from our world. I'm not really a bird person. I'm all human, same as you. But we haven't known each other long enough and...I guess...this is that arcane fate thing...." This was going to get so on her nerves....

Tara thought about that for a few seconds, making little "um"s and "ah"s. "Right! I remember now! Anya told me people forget about Sidereals! I'm sorry, Cordelia. Is it okay if I hope we weren't good friends?"

"We weren't," Cordy said, "but just because we met late. I'm sure we'd have gotten along." Maybe. Eventually.

"So why are you wearing a gay parrot costume again?" asked the other girl, making Tara blush and cover her mouth to hide her laughter. Iron Siaka! Damn her, she really was-- No, pride rainbows weren't a thing here. Iron Siaka couldn't possibly know.

"Infernals aren't affected," Cordelia explained, "but to most people I look like one of the parrot people who live further out in the jungle. I told them your university was open like I was supposed to, Tara. Now who's the hunk?" All this stress was going to ruin her resplendent destiny, but it'd served its purpose.

The big man bowed. "I am Dark Eyes, leader of the Ten Tribes. We prepare to follow your friend to the Blessed Isle and to battle." He hesitated a few moments, then blurted out. "I am a married man. Do not get any ideas."

"Just imagining," Cordelia sighed. Who were the Ten Tribes? There were a thousand tribes out here in the Eastern jungles and forests. This was Sperimen, also known as Mahalanka since Raksi took over. Ma-Ha-Suchi used to have a hideout somewhere around here, and there was a Dragon King city called Rathess nearby. Wait a minute. How did she know this stuff? It must have been in the brain download or something.

Beth gave Cordelia a smirk and sidled closer to Dark Eyes. "He's taken." Wait, was she his wife? A Maclay girl from Earth? Weird. "Dark Eyes, get your people together and into the transport. She says it's time to go."

"As you like." And he hurried off, leaving Cordelia to wonder what she was missing here.

*****

The monorail door opened, and Anya stepped into the Daystar. Light blazed all around her, red burning in the golden walls. "We have been waiting for you," Luna said, and the Maidens inclined their heads.

"I'm not really clear on what I'm supposed to be doing here," Anya said crankily. "Something about a demon and Shadow and the Sun."

"While Innocence Betrayed lingers as the fetich soul of the Ebon Dragon," Saturn said, "we cannot replace Ignis Divine. Otherwise, the demon will become the heart of the new Sun as well and our efforts will have been wasted. You are here to facilitate its death."

"But not kill it?" Anya followed as the Maidens led her through the halls.

"It is not your place," Luna said. "Only to see the work done. Unconquerable Shadow must carry it out."

"Why?" Anya nearly stopped in her tracks at that.

"Ignis Divine must be replaced in utter secrecy," Mars said calmly, "or Heaven will be consumed with politicking over who is to replace him. As it is, too many know that he has not merely been kidnapped or led astray. The red sun burns only those who have a physical vulnerability, not creatures of darkness, and its light unnerves beasts and men while giving little nourishment to the crops. But the waiting has given rise to suspicion that we have lost the means to elevate a new Sun."

"The power is within you, Anya, and the locks we placed on the Loom were broken when your continuum and ours fused together." Jupiter traced a diagram in the air. "It is you who must create the replacement Sun and fulfill your purpose in Samsara. And it is Unconquerable Shadow, whom few know about and none will expect, who must _become_ his replacement."

"But first," Luna said, "she must earn her redemption, for only a Solar Exalt is compatible with such a transformation, just as you could only replace one of the Maidens and one of my own would be needed to replace me. Any god could do it, but few are suitable and many would grasp for it."

"And to earn her redemption she has to kill Innocence Betrayed?" Anya wanted a straight answer, but the Incarnae only looked at each other silently. "Why hasn't she done it?"

"No being has proven able to pierce his defenses," Mars said reluctantly. "All who gaze on him see only a helpless infant."

"I'll talk to her," Anya said with a sigh. "You're sure you don't just need an Ending?"

"If that were it," Mercury grumbled, "Saturn could handle it herself. No, all things must follow their appointed path to its conclusion, Anya."

Anya looked at Venus, who still hadn't spoken. Her eyes were red with silent tears. "All right," she said. "Vengeance it is."

*****

"It doesn't help," Wesley warned, "that the author of the blocks is deceased."

"That's why the sun went red?" Sulumor asked. "A pity it didn't do anything for my people."

"Your people are not creatures of darkness," Wesley explained, "at least not in a mystical sense." He began to painstakingly inscribe sigils into the seat. "Your intuitive work was very good, Xander, but it failed to take current circumstances into account."

Xander scratched his chin, where he was growing some patchy stubble. "Wouldn't want to blow up any demesnes," he grumbled. "Y'know, there are some places I've seriously got to check out when this is all over. Like this one manse where the floors rearrange and it opens up on alternate ways it could've been built!"

"You're too much of a construction worker " Sulumor said. She was nearly as stir crazy as the rest of them by now.

"Who's down at the base of the statue?" Xander asked.

"Realm troops gathering," Cearr warned. "Cathak legions ain't big fans of Tepid Java, plus Fokof's probably put 'em up to it."

"If we get this thing finished," Xander wanted to know, "can I rain down destruction on their heads?"

"Probably," Wesley said, "but striking too close to our own dragon lines might be a bad idea. You could depower or even destroy the Penitent itself. If it comes to that, I'll take care of them."

"You?" Cearr sneered. "You couldn't handle a legion of rabbits."

Xander came to his defense. "You're talking to the man who killed Dukantha, Cearr. I'd watch what I said."

"Killed...?" Cearr broke off and stared at Wesley. "Can't be. You Exalted in the fight with the Judge. Dukantha died a good bit before that."

Wesley tilted his head and shrugged. "What can I say? Learning hath its privileges."

*****

"What is that?" the Maiden asked.

Fred fiddled with the device a few moments longer before another contraction hit. Between clenched teeth, she gritted out, "Grenade."

"I have never seen a grenade like that," the Maiden said, "though I have built a few myself. Toxins, for the most part."

"This is no ordinary grenade," Fred agreed. "I made it to take out Vodak. Or at least the part of him waiting outside for us."

"Vodak is all but unkillable," the Maiden said derisively, "even for such as we."

"Don't underestimate this girl," Gunn warned. "She's a regular Antonia Stark." Kenda looked at him blankly. "Iron Man. Um...Autochthon's pet."

"It won't kill Vodak," Fred told them, "but for most purposes it might as well." She handed it to the Maiden. "Look it over, see what you think."

"No explosive," the Maiden said pensively. "No energy release mechanism at all. What kind of weapon is this?"

Fred tried to shrug, but another contraction ripped through her. Only when it finished was she able to say, "Take it to the door. Press this button, open the door, and throw it at the monster. You'll understand when you see it happen."

The Maiden looked the device over with a skeptical eye. "If this is an attempt to have me devoured--"

"It isn't," said the Scholar, returning from the reality engine ring. "It'll work. It's a brilliant idea, if you ask me." The Maiden met her eyes levelly. "Which you didn't, but still."

The Maiden growled and stalked off tiward the door. "Clear this passage!" she snapped. Light That Kills scowled, but led his people out of that section. Once Vodak was gone--if it worked--he might well turn on them.

The Maiden didn't let that concern her. She opened the door--Vodak was lapping against it like a silver sea--hurled the grenade through, and somersaulted backwards, away from the opening.

The grenade released a flare of eye-searing white light that filled the area instantly, then shrunk to a fitful point and dissipated. When her vision returned, Vodak was gone. Kenda stalked back to the laboring woman. "What was that? How did it destroy Vodak without killing it? Explain this to me!"

"Vodak is fine," Fred said patiently. "But it won't be coming back any time soon. The rift sucked it into Elsewhere. I call it a vortex grenade."

"Can you make more?" Kenda demanded. To have these to fling at an opposing legion--

"Not without more components," Fred said with a sad smile. "But I bet I could make something else next time."

"Next time," Kenda said roughly, "make it before the fight begins."

The next contraction came, and this time Fred shrieked like a dying Wyld behemoth. The Scholar and Karal Linwei came racing back. "Baby's crowning," Linwei warned. "He snuck up on us. Kenda! We're going to get her to her feet. Get ready to catch the baby. Clear out its mouth if it needs doing, then cut the cord. I'll have it clamped off for you by then."

"You want me to help deliver an infant?" the Maiden snapped. The idea was absurd.

"Yes!" the Terrestrial snapped back. "One, two, up!" She and the Scholar caught Fred by the arms and hauled her upright. "Push! Kenda, catch!" Kenda put her hands out, eyes wide, but only the head emerged, up to the shoulders. The child was huge, with black-and-white skin and a blowhole like an orca's. "Support his head," Linwei warned. "Once more!" Fred bore down, and the baby slid into the Maiden's arms, its movements jerky and unnatural-looking. It was those colors all over, with a small dorsal fluke folded over on its back, and webbed hands and feet. The Maiden bent down and bit the cord free with her teeth, tasting the potent Lunar blood.

"It's a b-boy," Willow stammered. "What do we even call him?"

"Michael," Fred said dreamily. "Michael Faraday Burkle."

Willow studied Fred for signs of delirium. "All right," she said. "Sure, that works. I...I hace to get back to Shaia and Anya. Linwei, have you got them handled?"

Karal Linwei seemed stunned. "I've never delivered a beast child before. No wonder the birth was difficult."

Fred took the baby into her arms. "That's my boy all right. Difficult kids run in my family. I should know, I was one."

*****

"Giles!" The Slayer leapt up the stairs and threw her arms around her Watcher. "You're back from Yu-Shan already?"

"Ah, yes," Giles said agreeably. "Important business. Negotiations with Mnemon and some other important Dragon-Blooded. We must be ready to strike soon." He scanned the stairway. "Where is everyone?"

"Dawn's showing off in the basement," Buffy explained. "Mnemon has a sort of artificial Wyld zone down there for research purposes. At least, that's what she says. Come on down! You need to see this stuff!" She turned to bound back down the stairs.

Giles lifted his wrackstaff, lit it aflame with a thought, and struck.


	23. Secret Identity

Buffy sensed the flaming staff before Giles even had it in position, and when it came down, she wasn't there. Whatever training exercise he had in mind, he was way behind the times. She brought her left foot up to kick him in the knee.

He wasn't there. The staff crashed into her back as she spun. The flames went out briefly as she sucked them up, then burst alight again. Which was okay as far as it went, but-- "Giles. You know I have to operate in secret. For security."

"Lately you haven't seemed to care," he argued. "This world is not our own, after all." Her fist buzzed past his face as he leaned lazily aside.

"Different circumstances," she insisted. If they gave themselves away on the Blessed Isle before it was time, they'd be crushed by the Dragon-Blooded host, with the locals rushing to help. The tip of the staff crashed into her gut, knocking the wind from her. Worse, she wasn't actually absorbing any energy from the flames, as if the impact were disrupting that power.

"You're in Mnemon's villa," Giles pointed out chdingly. "Unleash your new demonic powers to your heart's content." Her kick swept under his feet as he leapt into the air, grabbed a tapestry, and spun in midair to kick Buffy in the face.

"Damn, Giles. A, you're getting really good. But b, you know my old powers are just as demonic as the new ones." She leapt forward and dashed up the wall to rip his tapestry free from the ceiling and let him drop. "I'm one Slayer. It's all facets of the same diamond." He landed on his feet as she grabbed the oil lamp and swung, spilling flaming liquid in a line down the stairwell. "And that's what makes my powers my best friend."

Giles leapt over the line of flame and brought his staff down on her shoulders. "Case in point," Buffy said, and a fanged maw opened up on her back to seize the weapon between its teeth. She wriggled to shake it, trying to tear the staff out of his grip.

Giles sighed. "Determined to follow the rules, I see. A shame you've come to that so late." He slid the staff into a set of straps on his back and drew a shorter rod. "Let's try this instead. It's called an essence lash." He flicked it in Buffy's direction, and lightning bolts shot from it like whips. Even this weapon was wreathed in tongues of flame that licked out from the blue sparks.

The lightning grounded in Buffy and drained away into her body. A stinging pain in her forehead, familiar now, heralded the first flicker of her caste mark. "Giles! What the hell?" It wasn't just the radiance; if her aura grew past a certain level she'd begin to transform. She could contain it--all her adult life she'd been unknowingly trained to hold back on her powers--except if Giles overloaded her with energy. He knew she had to hide; why would Giles, of all people, put her at risk?

"Afraid of exposure, Buffy?" Giles spun and lashed out at her again, clearly enjoying himself. Good on him as far as that was concerned, but she was the one having to limbo under the energy whip! Another burst caught her arm; she tasted ozone. Everything that touched her had a taste now, almost always a good one. Her stomach growled and her mark flared brighter, crossed swords blazing.

She leapt over the whip as he swung again, grabbing a priceless dragon statue. It was made of white jade, so there was no real risk of damaging it. She lobbed it at Giles, and he danced out of the way. "I don't understand. This isn't some test. This isn't a sparring match. I'm not going to be given a Class Protector award even if I save the whole island from being eaten by Metagaos. They'll kill me as an Anathema and write a history that says Mnemon did it by herself. Why are you trying to out me?"

Next to the front door hung an assortment of weapons, an assertion of the simple truth that security in this world rested on the martial prowess of the Chosen. As official consort to Mnemon, Buffy had hung the Scythe there with the array of blades, standing out among the collection of daiklaves and powerbows. She took a flying leap over Giles' head, grabbing the magic chandelier to carry her across the room, and dropped into a crouched stance behind him, Scythe in hand.

Giles barreled into her, staff up to block any attack she might make, and they crashed into the door together, but the latches held. He pinned her there, though not without a struggle, and she let him say his piece. "The time has come for truth, Buffy. You killed this world. I remember it. Perhaps you've killed it a hundred times, or a thousand, an endless recursive cycle of alternative planes. I will always be grateful to you for saving Earth. We will always be in your debt. But one girl who can save the world is one girl who can end it, if she chooses, and while a world can be saved many times, it can only die once!" The butt of the essence latch slammed up suddenly into her crotch, and she pretended to double over. It really did hurt like hell. "You killed me, Slayer, and while I prefer to avoid vengeance, I admit it gives this battle a certain...spice."

"What the hell are you talking about, Giles?" He wasn't lying. As he saw it, all of this was true.

"Leviathan may have delivered the deathblow, but you made it possible, Buffy." She had to force his hand away from the door. "You, who came from outside fate and poisoned me."

"Whoa. Giles, that wasn't you, that was--" Exaltations carried memories...and the Sidereals were trained to get at them. "Chejop Kejak?"

His only answer was a lightning bolt to the face.

**Chapter 113--Secret Identity**

Gwen Raiden pelted down the endless array of catwalks, followed by her cohort of Air aspects, who surrounded Buffybot. Drusilla and Beneficent Sanguine Messenger beckoned them forward, forward, on above the abyss below. "Scurry faster," Drusilla urged.

Gwen didn't need the encouragement. Clouds of living steam swirled around them, breathing blasts of superheated vapor, and her defenses didn't seem as effective as they ought to be. Messenger claimed the elements themselves were mystically-different here. She flung a lightning bolt at a thing that was half eagle, half cloud; the creature's eyes and mouth flared yellow, and it shrieked, but it still dove at her allies.

Drusilla groaned and shook her head, then reached out as one of the elementals swooped past her. It tried to breathe a jet of steam at Messenger, but nothing emerged from its mouth. Drusilla cocked her head in amusement, then idly flicked out a dagger into the air as if tossing a card. Not only did the dagger fly true, it cut the elemental open so that the eagle's chest bled rain. Gwen shook her head.

"We're not making fast enough progress," Messenger called out.

"You want me to drive?" Buffybot shouted back.

Gwen shuddered. "No!" If the robot was anything like the real Buffy was supposed to be, letting her commandeer one of the Autochthonian hovercraft swooping around the catwalks would be a disaster.

The attacking craft opened fire again, shooting around the steam elementals as if the bullets could hurt them. Maybe they could? Drusilla eyed Gwen knowingly, but did she mean yes or no?

The former vampire leapt the railing and plummeted into the mist. Messenger shrieked as she vanished, but a moment later another craft rose into view, hoverfans blazing, and Drusilla rode its back effortlessly no matter how it bucked. "Allow me," she called politely, and overrode the hatch control with a passcode somehow pulled from her...Exaltation, Gwen supposed.

"All right," Gwen said reluctantly. "I guess _she's_ driving. Everyone in!"

*****

Cordelia tried to ignore the tension that seethed in the transport. Tried, and failed. Beth Maclay was at the center of it all. Tara was on edge around her, while First Iris of Spring seethed with enraged jealousy. Dark Eyes hung all over her, but kept glancing regretfully at Iris. _Marriage versus Solar-Lunar bond. Not pretty._ The thought must have come from her Sidereal download; she didn't know that kind of thing.

"Her power feeds on hypocrisy," Tara whispered. "I don't know how to help."

Cordelia gave that a shrug. "Buffy's feeds on violence and lies, and she's doing okay for herself."

"She is now," Tara warned, "but cousin Beth isn't Slayer-trained. Her whole sense of responsibility said magic powers were bad, so when she convinced herself hers were different, she went off the rails."

"And that's why she's sleeping with a married guy?" Cordelia spared a glance at him. "I mean, she has good taste, but...Hey, why don't I talk to her?"

"Be careful," Tara warned. "She's learning fast, and--" Cordelia stopped listening and got out of her seat.

It wasn't really Beth she meant to talk to, not first. She planted herself in front of Iris. "Nice weather we're having. You have lots of red sun around here?"

First Iris of Spring sank back into her chair. "The Chosen of the gods will take care of it," she said softly. "It is beyond the powers of the likes of us."

"The way they take care of your marriage?" Cordy probed.

"That's not a matter for the Exalted," Iris breathed in an even softer voice. "Only my own."

"Is it?" _Now_ Cordelia turned to Beth. "So why are you interfering, Little Miss Holy Roller?"

"God led me to him," Beth insisted. "He's mine now." Dark Eyes flinched, and Iris glowered, then tried to hide in her seat again.

Dark Eyes spoke up reluctantly. "She speaks a kind of truth. Our Exaltations are a mated pair. We are drawn inexorably together. I have no desire to betray my wife, and yet...."

"And yet you're sleeping with this brat," Cordelia finished. "Am I right?" Beth tried to argue, so Cordelia cut her off. "You keep quiet, King David, and get your hands off Bathsheba here." _Bathsheba? Who was Bathsheba?_ But Beth flinched and closed her mouth. She even started to ease away from Dark Eyes, only then she took his arm possessively again. _How did I know that?_

"Dark Eyes is hardly a ewe lamb," Beth said defensively. "He's an Exalt, and he chose me over her."

 _Ewe lamb?_ "Don't try to squirm out of it, Beth Maclay. I thought you'd want to prove you're not a demon." _The parable Nathan told David. It has to be my Exaltation kicking in, feeding me info. Somehow it knows about my world too._ How the heck did that work?

"I don't have to prove that," Beth said confidently. "The Spirit set me free of it." She inclined her head, showing off the flickering flames.

 _She thinks it's from the Holy Spirit, as in Acts chapter two. More likely she's hosting a gilmyne, a minor soul of Cecelyne._ Boy, she was practically a walking DemonsDemonsDemons.com right now. "What if _I_ think you're a Maclay witch? One who likes screwing married men because she's evil?"

"Then I wouldn't have authority over demons," Beth countered. There was a big hole in that, but Cordelia hesitated to point it out. If her powers ran on hypocrisy, the more she fought the truth the harder it would get to persuade her. But what was the alternative?

"Except we both have power," Cordelia pointed out, "and we're not on the same side. Against Fokof, maybe, but the moment he's out of the way you'll be back to trying to kill my friend. Right? It's all too complicated for your argument."

Beth frowned doubtfully. "I might. I've been trying to rethink it. It feels right, but I can see why it upsets people." There! Now that she was off the defensive she was weaker. That was weird and counterintuitive, but it worked. "I don't know that I want to kill Tara any more." The admission took something out of her, and she squeezed her forehead between her hands.

"Okay, then, that's progress." Cordelia patted her on the shoulder and went back to her seat. "I think we got somewhere."

"You did," Tara agreed. "Except that isn't what you went to talk to her about." She pointed at her cousin, who was passionately kissing Dark Eyes while Iris glared sullenly at them.

"Crud," Cordelia grumbled. "I was sure I had her! She completely ran me off the track of what I was saying."

Tara nodded sagely. "She does that. You think you won, and then you realize you beat her on some minor point and forgot what you were after."

"Well, I don't appreci--" A hollow boom resounded through the transport. "What the heck was that?"

"We've been hit!" Tara popped a hatch; they weren't flying very high.

"Surrender!" shrieked a man dressed in pirate garb. He stood atop the deck of a ship that floated in mid-air, balloons mixed with its sails. "Surrender to the Yozis and Captain Gyrfalcon, or be splattered through the jungle!"

*****

Buffy headbutted Giles in the face. Delivered with her full strength, the move should have broken his neck, but the only thing that shattered was his glasses, which dropped to the floor. "Giles," she began. "Listen to me. You aren't Ketchup Carjack. You're my Watcher. You're...you're like my favorite uncle. You're--"

"I know who I am," Giles said calmly. "I will always value my time as your Watcher." His elbow drove into her gut. "But you have botched this entire affair and you will no doubt botch it again. The cycle must not repeat, Buffy. I won't allow it."

He curled the energy whip around her legs. She gritted her teeth and let it burn. If he meant to expose her as Anathema, he couldn't be powerful enough to kill her himself, not easily at least.

Giles pulled the whip back to strike again, and the stone floor rippled and threw him to the ground. Mnemon stepped up beside Buffy. "I thought this man was your teacher," she said.

"He is," Buffy warned. "Don't count him out just 'cause you knocked him down."

"I won't," Mnemon agreed. "I heard you call him Kejak. If he's somehow inherited that man's Exaltation, he may well be more dangerous than you."

"Worse than that," Buffy said as she kicked the whip into the air and snagged it. "I think he's got Kejak's Exaltation from my world, where ancient copy me destroyed Creation. He remembers me killing an entire world full of people."

"You won't repeat that, will you?" Mnemon grew shackles out of the floor to seal Giles' hands down. "You've learned? Because where Anathema are concerned his fears are well-founded."

"We're past the crisis point, anyway," Buffy said, relaxing a little as Giles struggled against his bonds and found them effective. "I didn't free more Yozis to fight the Ebon Dragon and kill him."

Mnemon's eyebrows climbed up behind her bangs. "You didn't _what_? An ambitious plan, certainly."

"Breaks all the rules," Buffy agreed. "My specialty. Only that time it didn't work as planned."

A massive blow slammed into the door, rattling it on its hinges. Both of them were facing it in an instant, but the portal held. "Dawn's got the baby?" Buffy asked.

"Wet nurse," Mnemon said instead. "Dawn and Cyan are discussing natural philosophy."

"Get them up here," Buffy said, glancing at Giles' pleased expression. "We're going to need help. I just know it."

The doors crashed open before a mix of Realm troops and robed monks, led by...who was that again? Buffy knew her, but from where? "You thought I meant to rely on public outrage?" Giles asked, flexing his pinned wrists. A monk snapped his bonds at once. "Buffy, your presence here is illegal, not to mention quite scandalous. I informed the government."

"You _what_?" Buffy started, but the enemy commander cut her off.

"So, we meet again." She grinned wide, leaving Buffy still in the dark. After a moment waiting for a response, the commander grew impatient. "Tepet Lisara, Anathema! Tepet Lisara! We fought in the Lap!"

"Oh," Buffy deadpanned. "Is that all? You're the chick who burned half the grain harvest? You're lucky you're not in chains. In, like, a dungeon under the Imperial Manse."

"You dare mock me?" Lisara's eyes filled with flame.

"Clearly," Buffy said, "you have no idea who you're dealing with."

*****

Kate Lockley smashed the last of the cyborgs into the ruined pavement. Not an Exalt among them, just poor wretched souls who'd been made into grist for the mill, but they were beyond saving and the people they'd attacked weren't. The zombie-thing turned its half-mechanical head and tried to rasp something at her, so she crushed its head under one massive paw. "You have the right to remain silent."

The refugee band hung back, even after she returned to human form, so she put her guns away and walked up to the nearest one. "We won't hurt you," she said loudly. "We came from the Big Apple. We're trying to get civilians somewhere relatively safe."

"You saw the ship crash?" asked a dark-skinned Asian woman.

"We made the ship crash," Shoat corrected. "But the land around the city is going to be useless for a long time. You need to get somewhere rural, at least for now."

"Somewhere you won't attract more attacks," one of the Dragon-Blooded added, "and there's plenty of food."

"I know what we need to do," the woman said. "The patrols are a problem, but it's not that much worse than Vietnam. But any help you can give, we appreciate."

"Boat person?" Shoat asked.

The woman nodded. "I never expected to be a refugee again. Not here. Thank you for helping us. Thank you for at least trying to restore order. Who are you?"

Kate considered for a long moment. "I'm the Queen of California." She expected questions, maybe protests, but none came.

*****

"Cào ni zuzong shíba dài!" Faith spat, then began to cough. Speaking Mandarin, especially without screwing up the tones and ending up talking about streetlights, wasn't all it was cracked up to be. And Amy, staring at her, nearly got her block knocked off.

"My ancestors wouldn't fuck a human as ugly as you," one of the Grappler demons snarled back. "Not even the rotten ones!" So Faith swung her hindquarters around and kicked it in the face. Slayer strength amplifying horse legs sent it flying with most of its head gone.

"Anyone else wanna comment on my language? No volunteers? Then I'll just have ta pick!" Faith galloped after one of the beasts as it fled and wrestled it to the ground. Being a centaur in the real world wasn't as bad as she'd feared. Sure, people looked at her funny, but not nearly so much with the invasion going on. The cravings for hay were manageable, and while she wouldn't have wanted to go trolling for a boytoy at bars in this form, she had a willing-and-able witch to party with and get her off. All said, it was stranger being able to understand Amy when she started babbling about mystic forces and stuff. Faith's head swam every time she realized that she'd understood a reference to the Ideal Gas Law or the Diet of Worms. (Pronounced "vorms", thankyaverymuch!)

"We only want to know one thing," Amy said calmly, batting aside a swung club with a pulse of warped space. "Who were Skip and the Beast working for?" Another of the demons tried to grab her, but she squirmed away easily.

One of the remaining demons snarled something Faith couldn't make out. Amy must've caught it. She said, "Whoever it is is behind the invasion too, or at least they're working together."

"Shoulda wished to speak Grappler demon," Faith said. She stomped another demon in the chest.

"Why?" Amy asked. "I can't. I didn't understand a word he said." Seeing Faith's confusion, she added, "I've branched out into telepathy. I read his mind." A blade of light severed the last demon's head. "He believed he was working for a Onceborn, an Infernal who was killed after becoming a duplicate of one of the Yozis."

"No name?"

"Not one I can pronounce." Amy kicked a stone, lobbing it through a broken window. "Five Days' Darkness says that's not what he wants for the new Infernals...like me...but I'm not sure I see the path he's trying to put me on. You know Lilah's not even tangible any more?"

"Seriously?" Faith privately vowed to look into methods of killing things you couldn't touch. She'd believe Lilah was really a good guy when the sun turned purple.

"No joke," Amy told her. "Not unless she chooses to be, anyway. It's an aspect of Cecelyne's power. Most of the shintai powers don't combine. But this one is basically permanent. If she learns a different one, and they fuse, what'll that do?"

"Maybe you need to learn that one too," Faith suggested. She'd be a lot harder to kill.

"I don't know," Amy mused. "Five isn't omniscient. What if he's been wrong all along? What if all we do is kill the world? Or become new Yozis ourselves? Even if he's right, he doesn't know the way forward. None of them do. We're completely in the dark here."

Faith contemplated that. It was weird, contemplating. "What brought this on?"

Amy shrugged and made a small, bitter laugh. "I was thinking about my powers, and I realized...I'm Phoenix. So when do I go dark?"

*****

Dawn walked up the stairs and into a nightmare. Not the Terrestrial attack. That was bad, but not even scary, not really. There weren't any obvious monsters, and out of the non-obvious ones, she was pretty high up among them.

No, the nightmarish part was Giles and Buffy fighting. It wasn't a spar. Giles was growing more self-assured, more proficient, more _powerful_ as she watched. And he was fighting to kill. He struck at Buffy's neck, at her heart, at her guts, with his energy whip or with any weapon grabbed off the wall. Buffy wasn't trying to kill him, but she was fighting like her life depended on it. She struck at his head, again and again. Giles was really easy to knock out if you could hit him on the head. And all around them, Dragon-Blooded energy roared like a tornado vortex as Mnemon's soldiers fought Tepet Lisara's.

Lisara wasn't fighting Mnemon, of course. She was lashing out at Buffy, whose expression was increasingly desperate--wide eyes, gritted teeth--though she didn't seem to be taking any injury. Mnemon tried to shield her, but Lisara wasn't interested in the elder at all.

Buffy's energies flared up into a green bonfire, and Buffy...stretched out. She grew taller, her nails sharper, and most of all her hair grew longer till it covered her like a cloak. But she breathed a relieved sigh, and Dawn realized she'd managed to keep herself looking human--even if she was about 6-foot-eight now.

What would her own powers do here? Dawn was a raksha on the Blessed Isle, maybe the first ever, and she could feel the weight of the Pole of Earth pressing her down. It was possible nothing she did would work. She was still tied to Buffy, still manifested, but....

A robed monk struck her in the face. Blinking through the tears, Dawn saw a girl not much older than she was...than she appeared to be, anyway. Dawn tried to speak, but fumbled around a broken tooth, maybe two or three. "Abomination," the girl spat. Dawn had gotten more of that than she wanted from the Knights of Byzantium.

Dawn spat back, spraying blood from her teeth. "You don't realize the mistake you just made." She knew the gate. She was the gate. She was key to the....

A man of stone emerged from the portal. _Ragara Myrrun._ Oops. This could be bad.


	24. Not Dead Nor Not of the Living

Tara thrust a pointing finger at "Captain Gyrfalcon"--where did she remember him from?--and shouted, "Cordy, Beth, Dark Eyes, get him! Everyone else focus on the crew!" With her other hand she made a forward thrust, and the monkeyman she'd been training as a pilot rammed the transport into the pirate vessel. Whoever he was, he was going to regret crossing her.

She leapt the gap as it narrowed and flung herself into the rigging, transforming her feet to grab the guywires. Right, Buffy had mentioned him when they first caught up with her! She'd fallen out of the sky and his ship had been there to catch her. Score one for the superhuman memory! Clearly his vessel had been repaired, though.

Behind her, Beth's jump was clumsier and put her right in front of a Crimslaw spider demon--what they called an anhules here. This could get icky. Beth raised her hand defiantly. "I command you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ not to harm me or those with me." Tara was almost unsurprised to see it halt and waver back and forth, as if uncertain what to do.

Gyrfalcon gave Beth a half-smile. "Effective opposition? How charming." Then he looked at the anhules himself. "And _I_ command you in the name of Adorjan and all the Yozis: attack!" The demon spider lunged forward, sighing an incongruous sigh of relief. Beth ducked under its snapping jaws, looking green.

Dark Eyes leapt forward to defend her, but Gyrfalcon flickered forward suddenly, blurring into streamers of crimson wind. His sword slashed briefly into existence and sliced Dark Eyes' throat. As the Lunar fell, Beth spun, trying to evade the saber, but it caught her in the arm, spraying blood. Cordy hadn't even gotten her feet onto the ship when the Infernal collided with her, though his blade only stabbed into the wooden ship as she deflected it. Tara dropped from the rigging as he passed beneath her, but he might as well have truly been a breeze for all the good it did her, and then he fell upon her crew.

Tara ground her teeth as the untouchable pirate slit throats and stabbed chests. Why didn't he go inside to kill the flight crew? "Block him! Surround him! He still needs room to dodge!"

Those of the crew still able to move and fight spread out around the pirate ship at her orders, though the anhules and what she thought must be a decanthrope clawed and clubbed at them. Dark Eyes rose slowly, the gash in his throat sealing itself as he did. Beth had fared worse, but she was binding up her arm to stop the bleeding.

Tara looked for Cordelia, but as she turned something slipped up behind her and spun her around. Gyrfalcon had her by the arms, pressing up against her, and he clamped his mouth onto hers in a scratchy kiss. Mustache! Yuck! Ripples of darkness flowed up him as he released her with a wink. "You're a pretty one," he said as the darkness flowed into her eyes. "Shame you'll never see your face in the mirror again. Shame no one can hear you scream for help." He picked her up and heaved her over the side.

He was standing still. She kicked him in the face as she fell backwards. "Sorry, not impressed," she said. "Still gay." Black-feathered wings burst from her back as she transformed into the shape of a radeken. Shame it was only the shape; if he was a wind, and she could eat weather.... "Also Lunar. Surprise!"

The pirate seemed unfazed. With a little shrug, he told her, "I know what you're missing. You should try it out." He winked, and pulsing heat blossomed from her center.

"Goddess! First Raksi, now you. You'd think m-making me fall in love with the bad guy would get old." The desire really was directed at him--a first--and the obvious supernatural source didn't make it _feel_ any less real. Captain Gyrfalcon was the epitome of everything she wanted in a man--in fairness, not hard to achieve. There wasn't even any real love to it; she just wanted him.

Inch-long thorns and toxic spore-pods burst from the deck all around him. Caught literally flat-footed, the pirate snarled as the overgrowth snared and stung his legs, then dove overboard himself. "Wait, what?" Cousin Beth asked. A few yards below, though, Tara saw him explode into crimson streamers of wind again and soar upward.

"He can fly!" Tara yelled. "And he tried to blind me and take my voice!" How were they supposed to confine him when he could fly? They were in midair! Beth didn't get the chance to respond; she was surrounded by a ferocious, tightly-focused sandstorm. What had he done to her?

Cordelia joined Tara in flight, but what exactly were they going to do to fight an intangible man? "Trust me," Cordy told her, but that was easier said than done.

**Chapter 114--Not Dead Nor Not of the Living**

The last thing Buffy wanted was to kill Giles, but he wasn't giving her much choice. He'd gone beyond trying to make her show some of her transformations, now that she was out in public. And while Mnemon's troops and retainers were engaging the majority of the Dragon-Blooded attackers, Tepet Lisara kept buzzing her like some addled Human Torch, firing off bursts of flame.

"Dawn!" She didn't really want her sister out here--better if she escaped with the baby--but with a battle like this there was no guarantee anyone would escape. They had to _win_.

Dawn was out of the villa, spawning a portal, and...oh, crap. It was that super-martial-artist. The one even the other Terrestrials had been nervous around. She should've known Dawn couldn't hold him forever.

"If the Sun truly favors you, Anathema," Tepet Lisara screamed, "then why has he turned his face? My little burning will be nothing compared to the crop failures to come." Buffy had no answers for that, and explaining that she wasn't actually a Solar was unlikely to help. Why _had_ the sun gone red?

Ragara Myrrun stomped one foot, and the earth opened up beneath Buffy. The crevice also claimed a rank of Terrestrial soldiers, and by this time she knew better than to waste time offering them a hand. But why was he so careless? He switched katas as if on a whim and sent bolts of lightning crackling towards her, but they were eaten instead by his fellow monks. "Hey, Ragara Moron? Anathema, over here!"

Mnemon choked. "Buffy, he's an Immaculate grandmaster! Don't try to fight fair!" Cyan--where had she been till now?--called out agreement. Of course, any course of action Mnemon and Cyan agreed on might be horribly evil. This sounded only sane, though. As if to underscore the point, Myrrun leapt at her, hands blazing with green-black energy. Anya knew how to do that; it was an instakill that transformed you from a person into a corpse. Buffy could undo transformations, but not block them, and she didn't think undoing death would work.

Instead, she dropped low, pulling Giles down with her. She needed him fixed, not dead, though maybe he had a defense she didn't. Tepet Lisara came hurtling wildly toward her again, and Buffy seized her with her prehensile hair. She didn't really want the woman dead either, but when she tried to abort the maneuver she realized she wasn't able. Lisara crashed down into Myrrun's path, the black energy burned through her body, and she dropped to the ground, drained of all color.

_I didn't mean to kill her!_

_**You swore oath. Defend. She was enemy.** _

Buffy found herself relaxing. Intellectually, she knew that once she would have felt guilty; now she merely recognized that her oath had been upheld. It was her nature. It was her. She got to her feet.

The powers were changing her. She ought to care. _**Use it. Make yourself what you choose.**_

 _I've been trying. Obviously not working as planned._ Giles' staff came swinging at her head, and she leapt over it. Myrrun gave him a respectful nod.

The voice in her head fell silent. Mnemon's admonition remained--since when had Buffy ever played fair? What were his weaknesses? Had he shown any? He was wildly powerful, and she probably couldn't charm a monk with her looks.

A wave of smothering earth rumbled towards her, crushing Terrestrials without a care. Oh, yeah. He was nuts. If she ordered him to come after her, though, he'd probably stomp her into the ground.

...into the ground. "Hey, Moron! Can you do this one?" Trusting that Giles could take what she could dish out, she raised her hands over her head, leapt into the air, and brought them down in a hammerblow. Her Watcher crashed to the ground, leaving a small crater in Mnemon's porch--in fairness, there wasn't much porch left. "Watch and learn!"

Myrrun's breath caught, and for just a moment his eyes widened. "Anathema, if aught could tempt me, a new art...but no. I have attained the unreachable peak. To let my footholds crumble would be an unbearable stain on my honor. I must complete my training in the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation."

Buffy ground her teeth. What else did she have on this guy? _**Eat him and be done.**_ That wasn't really an option. But what was?

*****

The vectorcraft dropped through unimaginable canyons of steel and brass. "Coming up on the transition boundary," Messenger reported. "We'll have to hit the hatch just right to enter the Pole of Crystal, and then deal with the guard--"

Gwen leaned forward to see why she'd broken off. A wave of red was billowing up toward them, rust and blood. A barrier of bones sprouted from the walls. "Shit!" But the Alchemical ignored her and floored the throttle. 

Gwen would've been content to let her, but Drusilla grabbed Messenger by the shoulders. "Not this way!" she shrieked, and Messenger blinked and brought the craft up and around in a wide arc.

"I'm...I'm not certain where...." Messenger stammered. "Nearest access is...I don't know. Everything is shifting about."

Drusilla closed her eyes and pointed. "Down the gullet. Birthday is coming."

"Birthday?" Gwen muttered.

"Vampires celebrate the day they rise," Messenger said absently. How did she know that? "Autochthon is dying, and when he does, he'll rise as certainly as any vampire." She turned the craft toward the left, zooming down the canyon as tarnish and some sort of organic filth spread up the walls. Gwen had no desire to find out what it was. "I'm not seeing any openings," she warned Drusilla.

"You won't," Dru responded. "Wait. Listen. Here she comes." And she waved at a blank section of wall, seemingly as solid as any other.

Buffybot squinted. "Yes," she said, "I see what you're--"

An iris squirmed open and a giant robotic bug emerged. "Not dead," Drusilla said, "nor not of the living."

A scream echoed over the comm unit. "Woot! Droodzilla! It's us, we've gotta get outta here!"

"Nope," Oz said simply. "Harmony, we have to reach the Core. Drusilla says--"

"You've gotta be joking," Harmony groaned. "Okay, back and around. Follow me!"

Messenger looped the vectorcraft around and squeezed through the hole. Two more people were riding the bug's back, but Gwen couldn't recognize them. Beyond the portal, the canyon opened out into a vast chamber filled with swirling smoke. Mountains rose from the floor, though they seemed to be made entirely of loose scree.

"Mister T says we've got a long way to go but if we stick to the ceiling we can avoid the worst of it," Harm reported. "We're headed for the Pole of...Steam?...so I'll have to get us into your ride."

"It's a little cramped in here," Oz warned.

"I can deal," Harmony said, giggling, and signed off again.

*****

"I've got it under control," Alexander insisted, and Wesley backed down. The Penitent wasn't even a temptation. It didn't have any desire of its own, and Alexander knew he could wreck Creation if he twitched it the wrong way. "I trust you guys. Now you've got to trust--"

A Hulk-sized fist smashed him upside the head, sending him toppling from his seat. "Aww," Cearr said, grinning toothily as he took Alexander's place. "You trusted _me_? Around the second-most powerful weapon in Creation? Roberts, I'm a barbarian...but you're _dumb_."

*****

Willow flung black lightning at the glassy barrier that separated them from the reality engines, but the substance was stronger than steel. "Who in the heck are you?" she yelled. "I know you're not Anya!"

Shaia laughed, a ragged sound of madness. "Do you know who anyone is, _Scholar_? Do you know your own name?" The stranger with Anya's face stayed busy adjusting the engines, deftly avoiding the cracks as Munaxes squeezed herself into the narrow space. The Ravine of Whispers would be driven into the geomancy of the world, and She Who Lives in Her Name would become part of Creation forever.

So, a complete world of mindless Borg. Willow ground her teeth and swore not to let that happen, but to stop it she had to get inside.

*****

The Chirmirajen screamed its way to a stop, and Anya tapped her foot till the doors opened and her favorite bleach-blond vampire emerged. "Spike," she said impatiently, "where have you been?"

"I was _supposed_ to be delivering a message to Buffy on the Blessed Isle," he snarled. "I didn't like this ride when I was off to meet Angel and I sure don't like it now!"

"Well, Buffy's here," Anya explained hastily, "the Buffy who actually needs you, anyway. The other Buffy's in the middle of something."

"Shadow," Spike muttered. Anya still wasn't sure what he thought of Buffy's Abyssal twin, but as far as she could tell the two were pretty much alike. "Show 'er to me."

The halls of light were tacky even by Anya's standards. Orichalcum everywhere. Fancy, sure, but why not add some touches of gemstone? Silver, platinum, anything but unrelieved yellow-gold? Seeing it dimmed by Shadow's presence was a relief.

"Spike," Buffy said gratefully. "I've missed you."

"Never thought I'd hear those words from you, luv," Spike responded, and put his arms around her, not noticing any awkwardness resulting from the baby she clung to. "What can I do to help?"

Buffy lifted the bundle. "Spike...would you eat this baby for me?"

*****

Amy pressed herself to Faith's back. Somewhere here, in the Underworld near Angel's old headquarters, the real architect of the apocalypse was waiting, ready to bring another one down on them the moment they fought off the cyborg invasion. Skyscrapers hung ominously over the streets, never quite teetering far enough to collapse. Not an illusion here.

Faith trotted her way into the Hyperion, and a whirlwind sprang up around them, screaming vengeful obscenities and praise of annihilation. "This must be the place," Amy said, and flung white fire in all directions.

"Yes," said the woman in the medieval doctor's mask, making her way down the stairs. "This is the place where Creation finally ends. The clockworks have ground to a halt. Die now."

Amy slid to the floor, and Faith launched herself at a gallop at the creepy corpse-lady. "Gotta get the sand out of the gears--"

The stranger put out one arm at the last possible moment and clotheslined her. "You will not so easily defeat Weeping Raiton Cast Aside, little Night."

*****

Cordelia soared upward on wings of flame, followed by Willow's girlfriend. (Who'd have guessed? Not her.) "Hey, Jack Sparrow!" she called. "I'm about to sink your battleship!" And she drove her shortsword--okay, her short _daiklaive_ , so more like a broadsword--into the airship's gasbag.

The rush of wind forced her away from the vessel, but her wings didn't set it aflame. Must not be hydrogen. Sensible of him. Tara ripped through the bag in another place with her claws and beak and was likewise blown away even as Cordy swooped back.

Then a red wind caught Tara and blew her _into_ the bag. Buffeted by the outrushing gas, Cordy followed, taking a deep breath of what she hoped was still good air. Too late. The helium wind carried no oxygen at all. Eyes watering, she flipped about in search of some. Down on deck, Beth, Dark Eyes, and assorted beastfolk were struggling with the demons even as the ship began to pitch forward.

Fortified, she raced back into the deflating balloon. They'd have to get their own selves off the airship before it crashed. Where was Tara? The bag was partitioned off so as not to be too easily ruined, so Cordelia began tearing through those curtains as well. There was Tara, still in radeken form, struggling with a vague shape as the collapsing silk confined both of them. She rolled, wrapping it tighter, and the pirate coalesced back into a human shape.

"I'll keelhaul you for this, witch!" the pirate growled in another voice entirely. Maybe he didn't have one of his own. Infernals could get extremely weird.

Tara didn't answer, sensibly enough. She lifted her paws, and strands of a very different silk exuded from her palms, binding the captain tighter till he could barely struggle. In moments he was coccooned, all but his head. Then, and only then, Tara growled out, "Dodge _that_ ," and tore a hole to reveal the approaching ground. "Let's get everyone to safety," she told Cordelia.

"Second that." After all, Dark Eyes was some serious salty goodness.

*****

The ship shot up through the superheated water, leaving bubbles the size of boulders in its wake, passing domed cities set into the walls and submarines the size of Manhattan. Buffybot hoped she wasn't hurting anyone. At least she knew the blood pouring in between the bubbles was far too much to be anything but a symptom of Autochthon's impending death. _Hang on, dad! I'm coming!_

" _Two hours_ ," came a voice over the communicator. " _All survivors please prepare for evacuation. In two hours the kill switch will activate and the Core will be destroyed._ "

Buffybot keyed the mike. "Nelumbo? Hang in there till the last second! I can still save him! I'm on my way!"

Only static answered.

*****

Ragara Myrrun had her cornered. It wasn't about trying not to kill him; the way he was slaughtering his own people showed he was as much a supernatural menace as anything she'd ever fought. Simply put, he was bonkers. Bananas. Nuts. Stark raving mad.

With Tepet Lisara dead, she couldn't even see if he'd respect a surrender. She couldn't fight him effectively. She couldn't divert him with tricks and mind control. What did that leave?

"Mnemon! What's the fastest thing you've got around here?"

Mnemon blinked and barely dodged a barrage of arrows. "You want to run?"

"If I wanted to run, I wouldn't need a getaway car. I'm wanted at the Royal Palace. May as well get going, and if they chase us all the way, let 'em!" Ragara Myrrun executed a perfect kata and nearly took her head off with a fist of stone.

"I have a Manta-class transport, but none of the weapons work any longer. Trust me, if we're headed for the Imperial Manse in a Manta, we're going to need weapons."

Buffy nodded. "That's okay. I am one. Pull the car around and let's jet."

Mnemon leveled a skeptical look at her. "From what I have heard from your friends, I should drive."

"No skin off my nose." Buffy winked. "But you could teach me."

*****

Cearr's grin grew wider. The Dread Pirate's reputation was even more inflated than he'd realized. He stomped again on the man's head, and all Roberts did was continue reciting his epic battle poem. Zeniths were useless. Even Malefactors like Sulumor were better.

Oh, all right. The imagery was inspiring, at least. Heavenly choruses and all that. Even if Cearr did prefer angyalka harpists to any gods' music.

He put Roberts into a sleeper hold, head between his thighs as the song suggested. "You don't understand, Roberts. Guess you won't live long enough to. In this world, _I'm_ Chuknor Ys."

Face red with strain, Roberts only kept chanting, bursting into a staccato rhythm...and suddenly Cearr was being pounded on, beaten and stabbed from every direction.

" _Then Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White/  
Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Black Knight/  
Benito Mussolini, and the Blue Meanie/  
Cowboy Curtis and Jambi the Genie/  
Robocop and Terminator, Captain Kirk and Darth Vader/  
Lo Pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger/  
Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan/  
Spock, the Rock, Doc Ock and Hulk Hogan/  
Came out of nowhere lightning fast/  
 **And they kicked Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass!**_ "

Next thing Cearr knew, he was being tossed out the doorway again, this time by a dozen or so figures of animate light.

Okay. So next time....

*****

Spike bit down, and Shadow pushed him away. He wasn't fazed by all the gods, and he wasn't fazed by the demon's defenses, either. "I thought so," she said, and pulled that same coldness over herself. "My turn."

She sank her fangs into Innocence Betrayed.


End file.
